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THE   MORAL   CONDITION   AND 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD 


The  Moral  Condition  and 

Development  of  the 

Child 


BY 

W.  ARTER  WRIGHT,  Ph.  D.,  D.  D. 


WITH   INTRODUCTION    BY 

TRUMBULL  G.   DUVALL,  B.  D.,  PH.  D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Ohio  Wesleyan  University. 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 
GEORGE  H.  DOR AN  COMPANY 


TO  MY  CHILDREN, 

WHO   IN  THE   REALIZATIONS   OP   LIFE   HAVE 

ILLUSTRATED    THE   THEORIES 

OF  THIS   BOOK. 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  was  a  saying  of  Borden  Parker  Bowne  that, 
although  a  sound  philosophy  might  conceivably 
be  of  no  benefit  to  the  world,  there  could  be  no 
doubt  of  the  real  damage  done  by  an  unsound 
philosophy.  With  even  greater  emphasis  might 
one  say  this  of  theological  dogma ;  for  in  no  other 
field  has  the  lust  for  system  at  the  expense  of  life 
borne  more  bitter  fruit.  And  good  men  have  sel- 
dom strayed  further  than  when,  under  the  ty- 
ranny of  the  a  priori,  they  have  essayed  to  extend 
their  deductions  to  the  moral  and  religious  status 
of  the  child. 

Not  the  least  of  the  merits  of  the  following 
discussion,  while  the  author  makes  no  claim  of  be- 
ing a  specialist  in  psychology,  is  his  appreciation 
of  the  bearing  of  psychology  upon  his  subject 
The  point  of  view  and  the  method  of  approach 
adopted  by  the  psychologist  bring  to  light  ma- 
terial that  may  be  obtained  in  no  other  way.  And 
no  safe  theological  structure  can  be  built  without 
this  material.  The  child-mind  and  the  child-life 
have  their  own  secrets  to  tell,  and  they  only  learn 
these  who  patiently  ask  what  the  facts  are,  and 
not  what  the  facts  ought  to  be. 

But  in  these  chapters  there  is  more  serious 


vu 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

business  than  exploding  unsound  dogmas  of 
childhood.  The  stress  seems  not  so  much  to  be 
laid  upon  the  child  as  upon  children,  and  the  main 
plea  is  the  children's  plea  for  a  higher  standard 
of  parentage  and  a  recognition  of  the  parents' 
place  in  the  world.  And  this  plea  deserves  to 
be  heard.  The  child,  summoned  into  existence  by 
no  will  of  his  own,  has  every  right  to  expect  that 
his  parents  will  undertake  the  moral  burdens  of 
fatherhood  and  motherhood.  He  has  the  right  to 
expect  them  to  maintain  the  wholesome  idealism 
of  the  home:  for  it  is  the  home  that  gives  set 
and  direction  to  his  appreciations  and  shapes  his 
unconscious  tendencies  and  reasons  for  doing 
things.  His  opportunity  for  achieving  a  charac- 
ter— a  perfectly  fashioned  will — depends,  in  the 
main,  upon  the  fidelity  of  mother  and  father  in 
meeting  these  conditions.  To  give  the  world  a 
healthy-minded,  generous  youth,  one  who  respects 
others  as  he  respects  himself,  who  has  learned 
the  lessons  of  self-control  and  unselfish  service, 
means  mothering  and  fathering  the  growing  soul 
for  almost  a  score  of  years,  and  is  the  greatest 
undertaking,  as  it  is  the  true  business  of  life. 
The  world  needs  men  and  women  of  this  sort, 
and  it  can  not  have  too  many  of  them.  To  give 
it  any  other  sort  is  to  sin  grievously  against  so- 
ciety. Parents  who  fail  at  this  point,  whatever 
they  may  have  amassed  or  achieved,  have  failed 
in  the  one  thing  where  failure  is  irretrievable. 
In  these  later  years  the  psychologist  has  pro- 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

duced  abundant  material  which  the  theologian  has 
as  yet  not  appropriated.  Much  of  this  material 
bears  directly  on  the  problem  of  the  moral  and 
religious  education  of  the  child.  And  the  student 
of  social  conditions  has  been  daily  tracing  the 
vices  and  crimes  of  society  back  to  their  begin- 
nings in  the  morally  bankrupt  home.  There  is  a 
timeliness  in  this  discussion,  therefore,  which 
ought  to  insure  for  it  the  wide  interest  and 
thoughtful  consideration  which  it  merits. 

TEUMBULL  GILLETT  DUVALL. 
Ohio  Wesleyan  University. 


CONTENTS 


PAGK 

INTRODUCTION,  vii 

FOREWORD,  ....  .       xjii 

I.     ORIGINS,  19 

II.     THE  CHILD  AS  A  FACT  GIVEN  BY  NATURE,   42 

III.  THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  SPIRIT,  59 

IV.  Is  THERE  A  MORAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NA-  ; 

TURK  ?  69 

V.     HEREDITY  A'ND  ENVIRONMENT,  80 

VI.     HEREDITARY  SIN  DISPROVEN  BY  KECOVERT,  89 
VII.     ACQUIRED  TRAITS   NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE  BY 

HEREDITY,  96 

VIII.     THE  PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT: 

SECTION  1.     FIRST  CHILDHOOD,          -      115 

SECTION  2.     SECOND  CHILDHOOD,     -        120 

SECTION  3.     THIRD  CHILDHOOD,       -        126 

SECTION  4.     LATER  CHILDHOOD,    -  133 

SECTION  5.     THE  YEARS  THAT  FOLLOW,  142 

IX.     THE  MORAL  SENSE,  -      145 

X.     SCIENTIFIC  ERA  OF  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION,  155 

XL     BAPTISM,     -  163 

XII.     How  CAN  A  CHILD  BE  SAVED?     -        -      173 

XIII.  THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE,  178 

XIV.  WHICH  ROAD?  195 
XV.     SUMMARY,  204 

xi 


FOREWORD 

OUR  point  of  view  is  that  of  Divine  Immanence. 
All  real  forces  are  God's  forces.  Undoubtedly 
man,  and  possibly  devils,  may  use  these  forces  in 
fighting  against  God.  But  when  we  discover  how 
those  forces  operate  in  themselves,  we  know  what 
God  has  planned.  All  laws,  wherever  found, 
whether  biological,  psychological,  or  moral,  are 
God's  laws  and  make  known  to  us  the  divine 
method  and  will.  Their  origin  being  identical, 
they  are  all  equally  sacred  and  obligatory.  I  have 
never  found  myself  in  the  predicament  where  a 
psychological  law  contradicted  a  revealed  law, 
and  hence  where  I  must  eliminate  one  or  the 
other;  but  I  do  find  aid  from  the  biologic  or 
psychologic  law  in  the  interpretation  of  the  re- 
vealed law.  Assuming  the  divine  origin  of  both, 
I  am  bound  to  find  an  interpretation  of  both  that 
harmonizes  and  not  to  leave  them  in  apparent 
contradiction. 

The  "Boy  Problem"  is  solved  usually  before 
it  is  attacked.  If  it  remains  until  it  becomes 
acute,  it  is  never  solved.  Unless  solved  in  child- 
hood, it  is  insoluble  except  in  rare  cases.  A 
youth  is  confessedly  difficult  to  influence  and 
guide.  He  has  come  to  the  period  of  self -guidance 


xiv  FOEEWOED 

and  independence,  and  is  suspicious  of  all  at- 
tempts to  control  him  by  others.  He  is  influenced 
by  the  "gang"  more  easily  and  naturally  than 
by  those  who  are  in  places  of  authority.  Unless 
he  has  already  had  safe  principles  instilled  into 
him,  by  which  he  may  safely  direct  his  own 
course,  the  battle  is  probably  already  lost.  The 
insuperable  difficulty  is  not  so  much  with  the  boy 
—for  there  is  a  pretty  sure  law  of  his  character- 
formation — but  with  the  parent  who  will  not 
awaken  to  the  problem  until  it  is  no  longer  sol- 
uble. The  saddest  hour  that  ever  comes  to  a  par- 
ent is  that  hour  when  he  must  reap  the  fruit  of 
the  neglect  of  the  training  of  his  child.  It  is  far 
darker  than  the  hour  when  the  body  of  a  loved 
child  is  consigned  to  the  grave. 

"How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 
to  have  a  thankless  child!"  A  father  said  to 
me  not  long  ago:  "I  do  not  know  what  to  do 
with  my  boy.  He  left  home  this  morning  after 
breakfast  and  probably  will  not  be  home  before 
midnight.  I  do  not  know  where  he  is,  or  what 
he  is  doing.  He  has  no  respect  for  me."  He 
seriously  discussed  turning  him  over  to  the  State 
to  be  controlled  in  one  of  its  institutions.  Par- 
ents quite  usually  listen  in  incredulity  when  a 
pastor  points  out  to  them  in  advance  that  such 
an  hour  is  coming.  Afterwards,  when  it  has 
come,  they  make  frantic  appeals  for  aid;  but  it 
is  usually  too  late.  God's  laws  of  child-training 
can  not  be  violated  or  neglected  by  Christian  peo- 


FOREWORD  xv 

pie  with  any  greater  impunity  than  His  general 
laws  by  other  people.  That  which  they  sow  they 
must  reap  just  as  others  do. 

The  practical  bearing  of  the  discussion  in  the 
following  pages  should  be  largely  in  the  direction 
of  a  different  approach  to  the  religion  of  children. 
The  traditional  door  of  entrance  for  them  into  re- 
lations with  God  has  been  through  the  teaching 
that  they  have  a  sinful  nature  of  which  they  must 
be  conscious  and  make  confession,  and  concern- 
ing which  they  must  repent.  It  is  proper  here 
for  me  to  point  out  the  sad  consequences  of  that 
teaching  in  my  own  experience.  As  I  look  back 
upon  it  now  I  am  certain  that  it  was  wholly 
mistaken,  and  that  my  childhood  was  greatly 
wronged.  I  say  this  without  attaching  blame  to 
any  one;  for  all  were  under  the  dominion  of  a 
theory  that  was  unquestioned  at  that  time,  and 
which  still  widely  prevails. 

I  grew  up  in  a  home  that  was  Christian  in  a 
very  genuine  sense.  My  father  was  a  faithful 
preacher  of  the  gospel  for  nearly  fifty  years.  My 
parents'  religious  leading  was  always  consistent 
and  genuine.  It  was  not  their  direct  solicitude 
concerning  me  that  caused  the  misdirected  ef- 
forts; but  rather  the  influence  of  the  religious 
teaching  heard  on  all  hands,  in  pulpit  and  Sunday 
school  and  religious  gatherings. 

Very  early,  at  most  at  seven  years  of  age,  I 
wanted  to  commence  the  religious  life,  and  pre- 


xvi  FOREWOED 

sented  myself  again  and  again  as  a  seeker  during 
four  or  five  years.  Among  the  people  who  talked 
to  me  on  the  subject  was  a  certain  preacher,  who 
was  often  in  our  home  for  some  years  and  who 
never  missed  an  opportunity  of  urging  me  to 
become  a  Christian.  He  was  a  very  zealous  man, 
though  probably  not  very  learned  or  wise.  I  do 
not  know  why  I  should  have  come  to  dread  the 
contact  with  the  man;  for  his  suggestion  was  in 
line  with  all  the  teaching  of  those  days,  and  I  had 
not  rebelled  against  it,  but  rather  had  striven  to 
realize  it.  It  must  have  been  some  instinct,  bet- 
ter than  my  teaching  or  my  thought,  that  gave 
me  an  aversion  to  his  suggestions,  and  to  him 
personally — an  instinct  that  resented  the  idea  that 
I  was  not  a  Christian.  I  do  not  remember  that 
the  matter  was  strongly  urged  upon  me  by  any 
other  person.  So  far  as  my  home  was  concerned, 
I  was  treated  as  though  I  were  a  Christian, 
though  this  practice  was  not  supported  by  any 
doctrinal  teaching.  In  seeking  for  an  experience, 
I  never  made  the  least  headway.  I  can  remember 
the  instructions  given  to  me  at  the  altar,  that  I 
should  repent  of  my  sins — not  specific  sins,  but 
of  sin  in  general.  I  was  taught  that  I  should  feel 
that  I  was  a  sinner,  and  I  tried  to  have  a  sorrow- 
ful feeling.  But  it  was  of  no  use.  I  could  not 
enter  into  the  experience  portrayed,  and  finally, 
when  about  eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age,  I  be- 
came discouraged,  and  for  two  or  three  years  en- 
tered into  some  sinful  habits.  I  thought  that  I 


FOREWORD  xvii 

had  adopted  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  non- 
elect  ;  tha.t  I  was  one  such ;  that  there  was  no  sal- 
vation for  me.  I  became  hardened  and  rather 
careless  in  some  matters.  I  say  that  I  thought 
that  I  had  adopted  this  doctrine.  I  would  have 
explained  my  situation  at  that  time  by  so  saying. 
I  very  much  doubt  now  that  it  was  a  real  convic- 
tion. It  did  not  take  me  long  to  discard  it,  at 
least,  when  a  way  into  the  Christian  life  was  at 
last  clear  before  me. 

All  this'  childish  instruction  I  now  believe  was 
an  entire  mistake,  and  seven  years  of  my  life  were 
spent  in  religious  darkness,  with  great  risk  that 
my  alienation  from  Christ  should  become  per- 
manent, by  the  teaching  that  I  needed  an  experi- 
ence of  repentance  from  sin,  and  a  conversion. 
I  believe  this  without  assuming  that  my  childhood 
life  was  without  fault.  I  at  least  was  not  in  a 
state  of  rebellion  against  God.  I  wanted  to  be 
counted  among  His  followers.  Actual  sin  should 
have  been  dealt  with  as  individual  faults,  as  we 
deal  with  all  of  God 's  children,  and  not  as  a  proof 
of  a  depraved  heart. 

If  the  following  discussion  shall  save  some 
from  such  years  of  suffering,  and  prevent  such 
risks  as  I  passed  through,  it,  no  doubt,  will  be 
amply  justified. 

W.  ARTEB  WBIGHT. 

Delaware,  Ohio,  June  1,  1911. 


CHAPTEE  I 

ORIGINS 

FEOM  the  standpoint  of  modern  science  nothing 
can  be  more  absurd  than  the  discussion  of  Orig- 
inal Sin  by  Augustin  as  he  comes  to  deal  with 
sin  in  its  action  in  our  animal  nature.  That 
which  the  scientist  regards  as  the  necessary  im- 
pulse of  nature,  wisely  and  divinely  arranged  for 
the  continuance  of  human  beings  on  the  earth, 
and  the  provision  for  their  health  and  well-being, 
Augustin  assumes  to  be  the  result  of  the  intro- 
duction of  sin.  This  sinfulness  may  be  assumed 
as  axiomatic  from  his  point  of  view,  because  the 
functioning  of  nature  is  attended  with  fleshly 
gratification;  as  if  the  hatefulness  and  painful- 
ness  of  an  action  were  the  only  conditions  that 
would  save  if  from  being  sinful.  He  seeks  to  de- 
duce from  Scripture  hints  as  to  the  pleasureless 
working  of  human  nature  before  sin  had  entered 
the  world. 

The  assumption  that  sin  only  is  pleasurable 
is  unfounded;  the  necessity  of  explaining  away 
the  gratification  is  forced;  and  any  such  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture  must  be  erroneous,  unless 
we  assume  that  the  Bible  was  written  by  some 
authority  as  inimical  to  modern  science  as  Augus- 

19 


20    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tin  himself.  This  latter  assumption  I  believe  is 
entirely  unnecessary;  but  as  I  turn  away  from, 
it,  I  turn  away  with  equal  decision  from  the  whole 
traditional  intepretation  of  human  nature's  re- 
lation to  sin. 

One  can  not  read  the  literature  of  the  day 
when  the  traditional  doctrine  of  human  depravity 
arose  without  having  the  strong  suspicion  that 
it  all  originated  from  the  assumed  sinfulness  of 
the  act  of  human  procreation.  It  grew  up  in  the 
same  atmosphere  which  produced  the  celibate 
clergy  and  the  immaculateness  of  the  virgin  life- 
two  of  the  most  prolific  sources  of  the  corruption 
of  Christianity,  as  well  as  being  doctrines  of  un- 
bounded offense  against  the  spirit  of  modern 
science.  The  purity  of  the  race,  or  the  excellence 
of  any  one  of  the  races,  is  now  held  to  be  identified 
with  the  power  of  reproduction  as  with  no  other 
one  human  element.  Biologically,  virginity  is  the 
fundamental  sin,  and  Nature  has  sought  to  pro- 
tect living  beings  against  it  by  her  strongest  pas- 
sion. Eace  senility  accompanies  the  vices  which 
destroy  this  fundamental  physical  virtue.  Race 
suicide  is  the  deepest,  the  most  prolific,  the  far- 
thest-reaching vice  of  a  boasting  civilization. 
When  religion  strikes  at  the  fundamental  human 
function  of  reproduction  as  in  its  very  nature  sin- 
ful, it  flies  in  the  face  of  all  modern  thought  and 
conviction.  We  owe  it  to  our  faith  to  eradicate 
this  so  fundamental  error  and  offense,  not  only 
from  our  creed,  but  the  least  suggestion  of  it 


ORIGINS 

even  from  our  consciousness.  This  monstrous 
barnacle  is  not  of  the  essence  of  our  faith.  It 
must  be  as  offensive  to  God  as  it  is  to  truth. 

It  was  the  view  of  Schopenhauer  that  the 
"essential  element  in  human  nature,  and  finally 
in  the  whole  of  reality,  consists  in  a  mys- 
terious impulse  toward  life,  a  blind  restlessly 
struggling  will  wholly  unguided  of  reason.  .  .  . 
In  nature  intelligence  yields  place  entirely  to  this 
vital  impulsion;  such  knowledge  as  is  here  devel- 
oped merely  subserves  the  interests  of  self-pres- 
ervation. ' '  ( Eucken :  ' l  Problem  of  Human  Life, ' ' 
511.)  This  will  or  impulse  of  Schopenhauer  may 
be  compared  to  what  Augustin  called  sin  in 
human  nature.  Schopenhauer  regarded  existence 
as  a  calamity.  If  Augustin  had  frankly  taken  the 
view  that  human  existence  was  to  be  deplored, 
then  it  would  have  been  consistent  to  regard  the 
passion  toward  reproduction  as  sinful. 

If  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin  grew  from  such 
a  root  as  this,  then  the  whole  subject  needs  to  be 
restudied  and  restated  in  the  light  of  what  we 
now  know  of  human  nature,  conditioned  as  it  is 
by  a  physical  or  animal  foundation. 

Augustin  was  orthodox  and  Pelagius  was  het- 
erodox ;  but  from  the  view  of  the  modern  student 
Pelagius 's  statements  are  verbally  nearer  the 
truth  than  are  those  of  Augustin.  This  may  be 
the  mere  accidents  of  words  that  have  in  reality 
changed  their  content.  It  is  altogether  likely  that 
Pelagius  was  not  so  near  modern  belief  as  his 


22     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

words  may  indicate.  At  any  rate  we  are  not  to 
disavow  what  is  now  evident,  just  because  the 
form  of  words  was  once  pronounced  heretical. 
The  words  no  longer  convey  the  same  conceptions 
that  they  did  as  used  by  Augustin.  The  whole 
point  of  view  has  been  changed.  It  is  no  longer 
enlightening  or  helpful  to  affirm  or  deny  some 
of  the  old  points  of  controversy;  e.  g.,  it  is  ap- 
proaching the  subject  under  a  wrong  presupposi- 
tion to  affirm  or  deny  that  infants  should  be  re- 
generated in  order  to  be  admitted  into  the  King- 
dom of  God.  It  is  not  illuminating  to  affirm  or 
deny  that  * '  children  are  in  the  same  state  in  which 
the  first  man  was  before  transgression ; ' '  and  yet 
this  was  precisely  the  point  of  the  Pelagian  con- 
troversy. The  whole  subject  of  the  moral  con- 
dition of  the  child  has  to  be  restudied  from  the 
point  of  view  of  modern  biology  and  psychology. 

THE  TRADITIONAL,  VIEW  WAS  Too  MATERIALISTIC. 

Harnack  points  out  that  one  of  the  early  de- 
velopments of  Christianity,  a  contribution  of 
Orientalism  on  the  soil  of  Hellenism,  was  the 
"depreciation  of  the  world,  the  contention  that 
it  were  better  never  to  have  existed,  that  it  was 
the  result  of  a  blunder,  and  that  it  was  a  prison, 
or  at  least  a  penitentiary  for  the  spirit."  An- 
other development  was  "the  conviction  that  the 
connection  with  the  flesh  ('that  soiled  robe') 
depreciated  and  stained  tine  spirit;  in  fact  that 
the  latter  would  inevitably  be  ruined  unless  the 


ORIGINS  23 

connection  were  broken  or  its  influence  counter- 
acted." ("Mission  and  Expansion  of  Christian- 
ity," I,  32.)  We  thus  see  that  the  later  deduc- 
tions concerning  the  sin  inherent  in  the  flesh, 
which  are  noted  in  Augustin  's  teaching  and  since, 
may  have  been  a  contribution  of  Oriental  myth- 
ical thought,  brought  under  the  formative  power 
of  Hellenizing  thought — something  read  into 
Christianity,  and  not  a  just  product  of  it. 

Augustin  thought  of  sin  as  something  phys- 
ical, something  inhering  in  the  flesh,  and  did  not 
confine  it  to  the  will  and  the  moral  nature.  To 
him  a  "movement"  of  the  flesh  could  be  a  sin, 
even  when  that  "movement"  was  subjugated  by 
the  will  and  denied  gratification.  This  is  as  ab- 
surd as  to  affirm  sin  of  the  animals  of  the  field 
or  the  interaction  of  chemical  forces.* 


*  While  Augustin  has  stated  more  explicitly  than  any  other  the  doctrine  of  the 
medieval  Church  concerning  the  evil  nature  of  the  "movements"  of  the  flesh,  yet  there 
is  evidence  that  his  belief  far  antedated  him.  It  can  hardly  be  traced  to  the  Jews  in  the 
form  in  which  he  held  it,  for  they  have  a  saying  in  the  Talmud  which  reflects  a  different 
sontiment.  It  says:  "These  four  are  reckoned  as  dead — the  blind,  the  leper,  the  poor, 
and  the  childless."  But  the  sentiment  was  so  strong  in  the  time  of  Origen,  who  lived 
from  185-254  A.  D.,  that  in  his  youth  in  his  aspiration  for  purity  he  mutilated  himself 
for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake.  (Eusebius  H.  E.,  vi,  8.)  If  any  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Church  deserves  to  be  styled  the  "greatest  of  the  fathers,"  it  was  this  Origen,  undoubt- 
edly the  most  learned  of  them  all.  The  volumes  that  he  wrote  are  said  to  have  been 
numbered  in  the  thousands,  and  his  impress  on  the  Church  has  never  perished. 

Meanwhile  the  doctrines  of  virginity  and  celibacy  grew  apace  and  the  foundations 
of  marriage  were  undermined,  leading  to  the  greatest  crimes  and  scandals  that  ever  dis- 
graced the  Christian  Church.  For  many  centuries  marriage  was  regarded  as  a  purely 
civil  contract,  and  in  that  form  bitterly  assailed  by  the  Church  fathers.  Chastity  was 
preached  not  because  it  was  a  good  thing  in  itself,  but  because  man's  fall  and  the  neces- 
sity for  his  redemption  was  traced  to  an  indiscretion  committed  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
All  intercourse  between  the  sexes  was  discountenanced;  to  have  children  under  any  cir- 
cumstances was  a  sin.  Young  people  were  enjoined  to  enter  into  vows  of  celibacy,  and 
multitudes  of  them  did  so.  Marriage  was  regarded  as  evil  and  vicious.  Decrees  were 
made  forbidding  married  women  to  approach  the  altar  or  to  touch  the  Eucharist,  and 
it  was  even  declared  to  be  doubtful  whether  married  persons  cohabiting  with  each  other 


24    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

We  will  not  overlook  those  instances  of  the 
lustful  movements  of  the  flesh  which  are  not  re- 
strained, and  those  sexual  relations  which  are  ad- 
mittedly sinful.  Of  such  improper  relations  there 
are  two  classes:  (1)  Those  which  are  physically 
forbidden;  (2)  those  which  are  morally  forbid- 
den. Social  science  is  making  a  careful  study  of 
the  first  class  and  denouncing  marriage  or  sexual 
relations  between  certain  classes  of  people :  those 
who  are  so  physically  diseased  or  defective  that 
they  can  not  transmit  to  their  offspring  sound 
minds  or  healthy  bodies.  The  known  law  of  he- 
redity out  of  such  violation  of  physical  laws  brings 
to  children  its  fearful  penalty  of  a  debilitated  or 


could  be  saved.  St.  Chrysostom  declared  in  the  fifth  century  that  if  man  had  not  sinned 
the  world  would  have  been  peopled  by  other  means.  Any  married  woman  who  desired 
to  be  a  nun  was  allowed  to  leave  her  husband,  and  he  was  forbidden  to  take  another 
wife.  Marriage  was  forbidden  during  Lent  and  at  sundry  other  specified  seasons,  until, 
as  an  old  writer  quietly  remarks,  "There  were  but  few  weeks  or  days  in  the  year  in 
which  people  could  get  married  at  all."  "In  the  fifth  century  priests  were  expected 
at  least  to  abstain  from  the  privileges  of  marriage,  if  not  from  marriage  itself.  Pope 
Innocent  I.  refused  holy  orders  to  any  priest  who  had  married  a  widow,  and  commanded 
every  priest  to  be  deposed  who  should  be  guilty  of  the  crime  of  having  children  by  his 
wife.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  twelfth  century  that  the  wives  of  the  clergy  were 
driven  forth  for  good,  and  that  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  was  firmly  established 
upon  a  celibate  basis.  .  .  .  Marriage  was  restrained,  but  not  indulgence.  Some 
of  the  popes  led  scandalous  lives,  and  the  clergy  who  did  abstain  from  marriage  kept 
concubines,  sometimes  in  large  numbers.  .  .  .  Enactments  had  to  be  passed  for- 
bidding priests  from  living  with  their  mothers  and  sisters,  because  of  the  prevalence  of 
incest;  nunneries  and  monasteries  were  hotbeds  of  debauchery,  and  congregations  who 
had  an  unmarried  priest  to  minister  stipulated  in  some  cases,  with  a  view  to  the  protec- 
tion of  their  wives  and  daughters,  that  he  should  keep  a  concubine.  In  a  similar  spirit 
it  was  decreed  by  a  council  that  no  priest  should  be  allowed  to  go  out  at  night  without 
a  candle."  (From  Marriage  and  Heredity,  by  J.  F.  Nisbet,  40-45,  who  refers  as  his 
authority  to  Lea's  Sacerdotal  Celibacy.) 

It  is  not  at  all  remarkable  that  from  centuries  of  such  abhorrent  doctrine  and 
more  horrible  practices  that  we  should  have  as  a  heritage  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin. 
We  only  affirm  that  it  is  high  time  that  our  age  which  has  clear  moral  vision  concerning 
the  practices,  which  are  the  root  of  this  doctrine,  should  now  turn  away  from  the  doc- 
trine, which  is  its  inevitable  fruit.  Humanity  is  disgraced  by  the  doctrine  aa  really  aa 
by  the  practices. 


OEIGINS  25 

degenerate  nervous  constitution.  Children  of 
such  parents  will  probably  be  physically  weak  or 
idiotic  or  criminal.  Thus  physical  heredity  of 
physical  consequences  is  freely  admitted  and 
greatly  to  be  emphasized. 

But  it  will  be  readily  noted  that  this  is  not 
the  inheritance  which  has  given  rise  to  the  doc- 
trine of  Original  Sin.  We  pass  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  second  class :  those  who  violate  moral 
standards.  Here  we  are  dealing  with  fleshly  lust 
and  sinful  gratification.  The  sinfulness,  however, 
does  not  directly  consist  in  the  physical  act,  ac- 
cording to  the  general  estimate  of  mankind;  but 
in  the  violation  of  certain  moral  standards  that 
society  has  erected  governing  the  sexual  relation. 
So  that  we  have  no  reason  to  expect  that  the  fruit 
of  this  sin  will  be  shown  in  the  physical  nature 
or  constitution  of  the  child ;  but  as  a  moral  fault, 
if  the  law  of  heredity  holds,  it  should  be  mani- 
fest in  the  moral  constitution.  Does  the  law  of 
heredity  manifest  itself  in  the  moral  nature  of 
illegitimate  children!  Are  they  more  vicious, 
more  morally  perverse,  more  inaccessible  to  vir- 
tuous influence  than  other  children?  There  are 
no  known  facts  to  establish  the  affirmative  of  this. 
In  Eoman  Catholic  countries  of  South  America 
from  fifty  to  ninety  per  cent  of  the  children  are 
born  out  of  wedlock,  or  were  previous  to  the  en- 
actment of  recent  civil  marriage  laws.  These 
children  can  not  be  differentiated  from  others  by 
any  marks  of  vice  or  sinfulness.  They  start,  so 


26     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

far  as  personal  moral  equipment  is  concerned,  on 
a  level  with  others.  Nor  can  it  be  shown  that  the 
case  is  different  in  the  far  smaller  percentage 
of  illegitimate  children  in  our  own  land. 

When  we  consider  the  environment  of  these 
children  and  its  legitimate  moral  effects,  we  will 
see  that  there  is  a  real  handicap  in  the  race  for 
life.  The  immoral  conditions  which  produced  the 
illegitimate  relations  persist  after  birth  and 
through  life.  They  can  not  fail  to  leave  their 
impression.  The  child  grows  up  deprived  of  the 
helpfulness  of  one  or  both  parents.  Even  when 
the  relations  were  not  the  outcome  of  unusual  de- 
pravity of  one  or  both  parents,  the  lack  of  a 
proper  family  life  is  a  great  deprivation  to  the 
moral  character  of  the  child.  Aside  from  this 
consideration  we  have  no  ground  for  affirming 
that  the  illegitimate  child  is  more  sinful  in  tend- 
ency than  are  other  children. 

But  we  return  from  this  digression  on  the  per- 
ennial elements  of  this  subject  to  the  primitive 
discussion  which  laid  the  foundation  of  the  tra- 
ditional doctrine.  Coelestius,  the  disciple  of  Pe- 
lagius,  is  credited  with  holding  that  "sin  is  not 
born  with  a  man — it  is  subsequently  committed 
by  the  man:  for  it  is  shown  to  be  a  fault,  not  of 
nature,  but  of  the  will."  ("Nicene  and  Post- 
Nicene  Fathers,"  V,  239.)  In  condemning  this 
opinion  and  excommunicating  Coelestius,  the 
Church  seemed  committed  to  the  materialistic 
view  of  sin,  as  something  born  in  the  flesh,  and  to 


ORIGINS  27 

have  denounced  the  spiritual  view  that  it  is  of 
the  moral  nature.  Pelagius  is  quoted  by  Augustin 
as  saying :  '  *  Everything  good  and  everything  evil 
on  account  of  which  we  are  either  laudable  or 
blameworthy,  is  not  born  with  us  but  is  done  by 
us :  for  we  are  born  not  fully  developed,  but  with 
a  capacity  for  either  conduct;  and  we  are  pro- 
created as  without  virtue,  so  also  without  vice; 
and  previous  to  the  action  of  our  own  proper  will, 
that  alone  is  man  which  God  has  formed."  (do. 
241.)  The  other  statement  for  which  both  of 
these  men  were  condemned  and  which,  it  was  as- 
sumed, was  identical  in  import,  is  far  from  being 
so;  it  was,  " Adam's  sin  injured  only  himself,  and 
not  the  human  race."  The  word  "injure"  is  too 
physical  a  term  to  cover  the  transmission  of  such 
a  spiritual  fact  as  the  guilt  of  sin.  Again,  Augus- 
tin says  ("Original  Sin,"  45):  "A  regenerate 
man  does  not  regenerate,  but  generates  sons  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh;  and  thus  he  transmits  to 
his  posterity  not  the  condition  of  the  regenerated 
but  only  of  the  generated."  This  play  upon 
words,  without  any  pretense  of  estimating  the  re- 
alities behind  the  words,  has  held  the  Church  in 
bondage  to  the  doctrine  of  the  unregenerated  con- 
dition of  children  at  birth  for  fourteen  hundred 
years.  It  sounds  like  holy  foolery  that  the  prac- 
tices of  parents  and  Churches  in  child-training 
during  all  these  centuries  should  be  based  upon 
word-plays  without  meaning.  What  possible 
meaning  could  the  word  regenerate  have  in  ap- 


28    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

plication  to  a  new-born  child!  The  child  is  not 
even  a  person;  it  is  only  a  non-moral  being  as 
yet.  Augustin  again  says:  "The  real  objection 
against  them  (the  heretics)  is  that  they  refuse 
to  confess  that  unbaptized  infants  are  liable  to 
the  condemnation  of  the  first  man,  and  that  orig- 
inal sin  has  been  transmitted  to  them  and  requires 
to  be  purged  by  regeneration. "  It  is  not  so  very 
wonderful  that  such  a  physical  disease,  as  sin  is 
thus  thought  to  be,  could  be  cured  by  such  a  phys- 
ical remedy  as  baptism  in  material  water. 

But  sin  and  its  cure  can  be  applied  only  to  a 
moral  being.  Moral  qualities  pertain  to  persons. 
An  infant  is  not  a  person.  Universal  recognition 
of  this  fact  is  evident  from  reference  to  a  child 
as  it.  Human  law  recognizes  this,  and  the  whole 
field  of  common  sense  affirms  it.  It  does  not  even 
have  a  mind  that  functions,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
conscience.  It  has  not  self-consciousness,  much 
less  moral  consciousness.  Theology  has  for  long 
been  an  exception  to  the  otherwise  universal  ac- 
knowledgment of  this  truth.  At  just  what  point 
we  shall  say  the  child  attains  to  personality,  it  is 
difficult  and  somewhat  arbitrary  to  say.  That  it 
is  on  the  way  to  personality  at  five  years,  ten 
years,  there  will  be  general  agreement,  no  doubt. 
That  it  has  attained  full  personality  before  the 
close  of  adolescence  would  not  be  agreed  to  by  all. 
That  it  has  no  moral  character  at  birth,  that  it 
has  full  moral  character  at  seventeen,  are  the  two 
fixed  points.  That  it  is  a  partial  moral  being  be- 


OBIGINS  29 

tween  these  points  seems  to  be  the  necessary  con- 
clusion. Where  the  personality  comes  from  is  a 
question  that  the  materialist  can  hardly  answer. 
G.  Stanley  Hall  says  (''Adolescence,"  I,  2): 
1 '  Certain  it  is  that  the  cellular  theory  needs  to  be 
supplemented  by  assuming,  both  in  the  organism 
as  a  whole  and  in  the  species,  powers  that  can 
not  be  derived  from  the  cells."  So  if  we  should 
find  that  at  one  time  the  child  is  not  a  moral  be- 
ing, and  later  that  he  is,  we  would  not  need  to 
be  staggered  by  the  fact,  as  it  is  no  more  con- 
trary to  the  history  of  the  individual  than  many 
a  physical  crisis  through  which  he  has  passed. 
He  has  received  from  without  that  which  was  not 
within  himself.  We  have  to  assume  an  outside 
Builder  even  of  the  body  of  the  child. 

To  affirm  sin  of  a  being  without  personality 
or  moral  character  is  a  confused  use  of  the  word, 
in  which  we  must  be  thinking  of  some  physical  as 
distinguished  from  some  moral  conditions.  The 
child-condition  is  a  sort  of  larva-condition  of  per- 
sonality. At  puberty  it  throws  off  the  old  en- 
closure and  passes  definitely  into  a  new  state  of 
personality  for  which  the  larva  state  was  a  prep- 
aration. The  subordination  of  the  child  to  the 
parent  is  based  as  much  in  its  moral  inabilities 
as  in  its  physical.  The  parent  is  moral  character 
for  the  child,  and  he  has  no  distinct  moral  respon- 
sibility in  himself,  although  he  is  constantly  grow- 
ing toward  it  through  the  years. 

We  must,  then,  avoid  the  confusion  of  moral 


30    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

and  physical  terms,  and  clearly  apprehend  sin  as 
a  quality  of  a  moral  being,  and  allow  the  appe- 
tites of  the  flesh  to  stand  uncondemned  as  long 
as  they  perform  their  work  of  maintaining  a 
normal  physical  basis  for  the  spiritual  life.  We 
may  have  a  diseased  body,  a  riotous  and  uncon- 
trollable nervous  constitution,  a  deranged  brain; 
but  a  sinful  physical  nature  we  can  not  have  with- 
out robbing  ourselves  of  words  which  describe  the 
condition  of  a  spiritual  being,  and  leaving  our- 
selves without  any  means  of  portraying  the  na- 
ture and  working  as  well  as  the  abnormalities  of 
that  being,  so  different  from  the  physical.* 

Without  doubt  the  great  weakness  of  tradi- 
tional theology  in  its  hold  upon  the  people  is  the 
seeming  unreality  of  some  of  its  doctrines.  The 
world's  vital  creed  is  wrought  out  in  the  experi- 
mental laboratory  of  life.  The  theologian 's  creed 
often  smells  of  the  cloister  and  the  study.  Some 
people  will  give  assent  to  a  fictitious  creed  that 
at  the  same  time  takes  no  hold  upon  their  lives. 
They  will  still  continue  to  repeat  shibboleths  into 
which  they  neglect  to  translate  conviction.  This 
is  a  triumph  for  formalism,  but  a  loss  for  godli- 
ness. Moreover,  those  who  balk  are  they  who  are 

•  "It  had  been  a  tendency  of  the  Enlightenment  to  see  in  evil  a  mere  defect  of 
our  sensual  nature,  which  would  disappear  in  proportion  as  reason  became  stronger. 
Kant,  on  the  contrary,  traces  evil  to  the  will:  for  him  it  is  not  a  mere  falling  short  of 
the  good,  but  is  in  direct  antagonism  to  it;  it  is  not  dependent  on  outward  conditions, 
but  is  "radically"  evil.  The  problem  becomes  thus  more  acute,  but  the  philosopher 
is  not  thereby  constituted  a  believer  in  the  dogma  of  the  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  that 
"most  unseemly  of  all  conceptions.'  For  man  has  also  a  permanent  disposition  toward 
goodness,  and  this  must  be  energetically  called  upon  to  confront  the  foe." — (Eucken: 
"Problem  of  Human  Life,"  540.) 


ORIGINS  31 

most  earnest  and  honest  and  thoughtful.  The 
skeptics  produced  by  this  unreality  are  likely  to 
be  those  who  are  the  real  leaders  of  men:  while 
those  who  slip  through  are  likely  to  be  the  un- 
critical followers  of  others'  thought 

That  which  does  not  appeal  to  us  as  real  does 
not  seem  to  us  important.  Hence  doctrinal  dis- 
cussion fails  to  awaken  popular  interest.  It  is 
in  vain  that  any  effort  is  made  to  electrify  doc- 
trines into  life  which  seem  remote  from  the  prac- 
tical results  of  life.  On  the  other  hand,  those  dis- 
cussions of  great  principles  which  appear  to  be 
close  to  actual  destiny  are  listened  to  with  great 
interest.  If  the  preacher  of  to-day  will  go  into 
the  field  of  realities,  discover  the  principles  which 
are  there  working,  and  come  forth  and  announce 
them  to  the  people,  he  will  have  a  hearing  in  any 
pulpit,  unless  perchance  the  pulpit  itself  refuses 
to  give  him  admission  to  it. 

Into  some  of  the  theology  of  our  religious 
books  fictitious  elements  have  been  introduced  on 
one  side  to  build  a  theory,  and  then  another  fiction 
is  introduced  to  cancel  it,  so  that  the  result  may 
be  somewhere  near  what  the  universal  sense  of 
mankind  demands.  For  an  example,  in  Pope's 
work  on  "Christian  Theology"  (III,  317)  we  find 
him  saying:  "Children  of  wrath  as  belonging  to 
the  lineage  of  the  first  Adam,  they  are  grafted 
into  the  second.  .  .  .  Unholy  by  nature,  they 
are  sanctified  through  baptismal  consecration  to 
God."  This  is  evidently  dealing  with  imaginary 


32    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

transactions;  there  is  nothing  real  about  it  on 
either  side.  The  process  of  salvation  is  made  a 
sort  of  arithmetical  problem,  worked  out  by  some 
second  person,  without  ever  touching  the  actual 
personality  of  the  person  who  is  saved.  John 
Jones  from  the  hand  of  God  was  a  child  of  God; 
but  something  happened  with  which  he  never  had 
anything  to  do,  which  subtracted  something  from 
his  acceptable  relation  to  God.  But  this  seems 
rather  hard;  so  something  on  the  other  side  was 
done,  with  which  also  he  had  nothing  to  do,  which 
restored  him  to  his  original  relation  of  accepta- 
bility.* This  is  a  fiction,  as  needless  as  it  is  ir- 
rational. There  is  no  warrant  for  saying  that 
God  really  is,  or  ever  was,  angry  with  children 
before  they  had  ever  done  wrong.  The  concep- 
tion is  revoltingly  repudiated  as  dishonoring  to 
God  by  the  unbiased  judgment  of  enlightened 
mankind.  The  author  himself  very  well  knows 
this,  and  hence  he  invents  another  fiction  to  right 
himself  in  practical  results.  (I  will  not  insist 

*  Luther  in  his  commentary  on  Galatians  says:  "And  this  (no  doubt)  all  the  proph- 
ets did  foresee  in  spirit,  that  Christ  should  become  the  greatest  transgressor,  murderer, 
adulterer,  thief,  rebel,  and  blasphemer  that  ever  was  or  could  be  in  all  the  world.  For 
He  being  made  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  is  not  now  an  innocent  person  and 
without  sins,  He  is  not  now  the  Son  of  God  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  but  a  sinner,  which 
hath  and  carrieth  the  sin  of  Paul,  who  was  a  blasphemer,  an  oppressor,  and  a  persecutor; 
of  Peter,  which  denied  Christ;  of  David,  which  was  an  adulterer,  a  murderer,  and  caused 
the  Gentiles  to  blaspheme  the  name  of  the  Lord;  and  briefly,  which  hath  and  beareth 
the  sins  of  all  men  in  TTi«  body;  not  that  He  Himself  committeth  them,  but  for  that  He 
received  them  being  committed  or  done  of  us,  and  laid  them  upon  His  own  body  that 
He  might  make  satisfaction  for  them  with  His  blood.  .  .  .  Our  most  merciful  Father 
.  .  .  sent  His  only  Son  into  the  world,  and  laid  upon  Him  all  the  sins  of  all  men, 
saying,  Be  Thou  Peter  that  denier;  Paul  that  persecutor,  blasphemer,  and  cruel  oppres- 
sor; David  that  adulterer;  that  sinner  that  did  eat  the  apple  in  Paradise;  that  thief  which 
hanged  upon  the  cross;  and  briefly,  be  Thou  the  person  which  hath  committed  the  sina 
of  all  men."— (Quoted  by  W.  Hale  White:  "Bunyan,"  98,  99.) 


ORIGINS  33 

that  it  was  his  personal  invention — for  it  is  hoary 
with  age;  his  responsibility  may  only  be  that  he 
did  not  reject  it.)  It  is  as  profound  a  fiction  as 
was  ever  conceived  to  affirm  that  water  baptism 
has  anything  whatever  to  do  with  the  moral  na- 
ture of  a  child.  It  is  simply  not  true.  No  evi- 
dence for  it  from  life  can  be  produced.  No  ra- 
tional necessity  for  it  can  be  shown.  I  will  not 
undertake  to  prove  this  negative  position.  Like 
any  other  axiomatic  position,  it  is  impossible  to 
make  its  offensiveness  to  truth  and  justice  any 
clearer  to  him  that  does  not  see  it.  But  one  in- 
ference from  the  position  it  is  worth  our  while 
to  arraign.  If  baptism  is  necessary  to  arrange 
children's  relation  with  God,  then  those  children 
whose  parents  are  too  negligent  to  attend  to  their 
baptism  remain  under  the  wrath  of  God.  This 
horrible  conclusion  might  have  gained  a  standing 
in  the  darkest  Middle  Ages,  and  may  still  occa- 
sionally be  heard  among  those  who  have  not 
moved  entirely  out  of  the  twilight;  but  it  is  so 
nearly  extinct,  and  its  death-gasps  are  so  nearly 
inaudible  that  there  is  no  motive  in  striking  it 
another  blow,  unless  to  quickly  end  its  dying 
misery.  We  are  so  far  away  from  it  in  our 
thought  that  we  are  startled  when  we  see  the  evi- 
dence that  it  once  lived  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. But  there  is  material  evidence  of  it  in 
Copp's  Hill  Graveyard  in  Boston,  where  there  is 
a  mound  raised  over  the  place  where  the  fathers 
buried  the  little  bodies  of  their  unbaptized  chil- 
3 


dren.  The  superstition  was  so  cruel  that  they  be- 
lieved that  the  very  dust  of  their  loved  babies  was 
so  vile  with  original  sin  that  it  could  not  share 
the  consecrated  places  where  other  dust,  that  had 
had  a  little  water  ceremonially  sprinkled  upon  it, 
rested!  I  here  record  the  revolt  of  my  nature 
against  this  misuse  of  children's  baptism.  In  an- 
other place  I  shall  give  reason  for  my  unquali- 
fied approval  of  its  rational  and  useful  observ- 
ance. (See  Chap.  XL) 

ORIGINAL  SIN  AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH. 

It  has  been  thought  possible  that  the  story  of 
the  virgin  birth  of  Jesus  has  had  some  relation 
to  the  assumed  sinfulness  of  the  act  of  human 
procreation.  On  the  affirmatory  side  of  that  con- 
clusion are  the  following  considerations: 

1.  Those  who  accept  that  account  would  ex- 
plain some  of  the  silences  of  some  current  nar- 
ratives by  the  supposition  that  it  was  a  subject 
that  would  not  be  talked  about  until  after  Jesus 
was  worshiped.  One  writer  (Garvie :  "Inner  Life 
of  Jesus,"  p.  90)  thinks  that  it  may  have  been 
"only  after  the  death  of  the  mother  of  Jesus" 
hence  long  after  the  death  of  Jesus  Himself — that 
it  came  to  be  more  openly  spoken  about.  Con- 
cerning this  it  should  be  noted:  unless  it  was 
known  and  used  to  establish  the  Deity  of  Jesus, 
the  record  of  it  was  needless.  If  it  came  to  be 
spoken  of  only  after  Jesus  was  regarded  the  Son 
of  God,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  account  was 


ORIGINS  35 

not  altogether  superfluous,  in  the  thought  of  any 
other  age  than  one  that  regarded  natural  pro- 
creation as  sinful. 

There  were  two  persons  to  whom,  if  for  any 
one,  the  knowledge  of  the  supernatural  conception 
was  important,  viz.,  Mary  and  Jesus.  Yet  those 
who  seem  to  think  it  an  important  link  in  the 
establishment  of  Christ's  Deity,  think  it  was  not 
an  appropriate  subject  to  be  communicated  to 
Jesus  even  when  He  was  twelve  years  of  age  and 
had  arrived  at  some  degree  of  divine  conscious- 
ness. They  seem  prone  to  put  off  the  necessity 
of  that  information  until  Jesus  had  come  to  the 
Messianic  consciousness  by  the  direct  operation 
or  suggestion  of  the  Spirit.  But  one  is  bound  to 
ask,  If  not  used  to  communicate  and  establish 
that  consciousness;  if  that  consciousness  is  pos- 
sible by  other  means,  of  what  value  is  the  com- 
munication then?  Is  it  needed  to  confirm  the 
other  communication,  as  if  that  in  itself  were 
doubtful?  We  feel  much  like  insisting  that  the 
communication  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  was  so  immeasurably  more 
sure  than  any  assurance  coming  through  human 
channels  concerning  an  event  long  past  could  pos- 
sibly be,  that  the  latter  is  not  to  be  mentioned  as 
a  ground  of  assurance  of  His  divine  nature  for 
Him. 

Further,  the  importance  of  the  knowledge  of 
this  event  to  Mary  rests  on  the  part  that  she 
would  have  in  establishing  by  testimony  to  it  the 


36    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

divinity  of  her  Son.  If  now  we  suppose  that  she 
never  so  used  it,  and  that  it  was  used  only  after 
her  death,  we  have  destroyed  its  value  for  her, 
and  hence  for  others. 

If  the  value  of  the  account  to  these  two  is  thus 
eliminated,  there  remains  no  value  in  it  except  to 
the  apologist,  and  for  him  it  rests  upon  the  false 
assumption,  as  we  contend,  of  the  doctrine  of 
hereditary  sin  in  normal  human  nature.  If  Mary 
is  not  the  witness  that  established  the  fact,  it 
clearly  is  in  the  region  of  speculation,  the  motive 
of  which  is  to  relieve  Jesus  of  the  taint  of  orig- 
inal sin. 

2.  From  a  biological  point  of  view  this  story 
is  of  trivial  importance  in  any  age  which  knows 
the  process  of  the  origin  of  a  physical  human  life. 
It  is  a  physical  fact  that  is  to  be  accounted  for 
in  any  possible  supposition,  and  the  alleged  vir- 
ginal conception  in  any  case  can  account  only  for 
an  animal  life  which  is  to  be  used  by  a  spiritual 
being.  That  God  should  use  one  physical  agency 
rather  than  another  has  no  significance  whatever 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  being,  who  shall 
instrumentally  use  the  animal  nature  thus  pro- 
duced. 

Concerning  the  ascetic  tendency  which  may 
have  been  a  factor  in  the  origin  of  the  story, 
Garvie  (op.  cit.  93)  says:  "The  ascetic  tendency 
to  depreciate  marriage  and  to  exalt  celibacy  did 
undoubtedly  find  encouragement  in  the  belief  in 
the  virginity  of  the  mother  of  Jesus.  But  this 


ORIGINS  37 

ascetic  tendency  appeared  in  the  Christian  Church 
at  a  later  period  than  the  narratives  of  the  birth 
of  Jesus.  If  it  had  had  any  connection  with  the 
origin  of  these  narratives  it  would  have  been  at 
pains  so  to  tell  the  story  as  to  put  Mary's  per- 
petual virginity  beyond  doubt  or  question, 
whereas  the  impression  conveyed  in  the  Gospels 
is  that  after  the  birth  of  Jesus,  Mary  lived  with 
Joseph  in  wedlock.  It  is  now  generally  agreed 
that  the  stories  of  the  infancy  are  of  undoubtedly 
Jewish  origin,  and  in  Judaism  marriage  was  not 
depreciated,  but  regarded  as  honorable.'* 

It  is  evident  from  the  reasoning  of  certain 
authors  that  this  matter  of  the  virgin  birth  has 
something  to  do  with  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus.  It 
may  be  that  that  is  its  real  if  not  entire  signifi- 
cance in  their  minds.  To  quote  again  from  Gar- 
vie,  who  may  stand  for  many  others  who  thus 
reason.  He  says  (op.  cit.  98) :  "It  is  also  certain 
that  there  is  no  other  human  personality,  except 
Jesus,  in  which  a  hereditary  tendency  to  sin  and 
distrust  has  not  appeared.  It  is  a  fact  beyond 
question  that  all  children  are  born  members  of 
a  sinful  race,  and  have  been  tainted  from  their 
source  (italics  ours).  A  sinless  and  godly  devel- 
opment appears  impossible  for  all  who  are  com- 
pletely, by  natural  generation,  incorporated  in  the 
human  race.  .  .  .  While  it  would  be  rash  and 
bold-  dogmatism  to  affirm  that,  had  Jesus  been 
born  naturally,  He  must  have  displayed  the  in- 
herited defects  of  the  race,  as  we  can  conjecture 


38    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

that  divine  grace  might  have  acted  prior  to 
thought  and  will  so  as  to  suppress  all  hostile  ele- 
ments to  a  perfect  moral  and  religious  develop- 
ment; yet  as  a  supernatural  mode  of  birth  is 
ascribed  to  Him  in  records,  the  witness  of  which 
to  His  words  and  works  secures  our  credit  and 
commands  our  respect,  it  is  not  a  vain  imagina- 
tion, but  a  good  reason  to  connect  these  charac- 
teristics of  His  personality  with  this  unique  fea- 
ture of  His  birth."  The  drift  of  the  thought  of 
this  writer  is  easily  seen:  Jesus  was  sinless,  be- 
cause He  was  procreated  in  a  unique  way.  But 
it  remains  to  ask,  Did  Mary  transmit  to  Jesus 
real  human  nature?  If  not,  what  is  to  be  our  es- 
timate of  the  Incarnation  fact?  If  she  did,  what 
has  this  unique  birth  to  do  with  the  fact  of  His 
sinlessness,  if  we  assume,  as  does  this  author 
above,  that  all  real  human  beings  are  sinful? 
Would  it  not  be  more  to  the  point  if  we  should 
account  for  His  sinlessness  from  the  birth  of  His 
spirit?  (Our  own  view  of  the  distinction  of  the 
birth  of  the  spirit  from  that  of  the  body  is  set 
forth  in  a  later  chapter,  Vid.  chapter  III.  It  is 
only  necessary  here  to  suggest  that  it  is  not  iden- 
tical with  the  fleshly  birth.)  Garvie  makes  a 
strong  reply  to  himself  when  he  says :  "  It  seems 
to  the  writer  unfortunate  that  the  term  virgin 
birth  throws  so  great  emphasis  on  the  absence  of 
the  paternal  function,  as  though  the  maternal 
function  under  normal  conditions  were  not  as 
liable  to  be  the  channel  of  hereditary  taint,  or  as 


(ORIGINS  39 

though  it  were  the  union  of  two  functions,  that 
caused  the  transmission  of  evil."  (Op.  cit.  99.) 
How  inconsistent  are  they  who  admit  that  Joseph 
was  competent  to  be  the  instructor  and  governor 
of  the  child  Jesus,  but  not  to  be  His  physical  fa- 
ther, and  yet  allow  that  to  be  the  spiritual  father 
of  a  child  is  a  much  higher  function  than  that  of 
being  his  physical  father!  We  believe  that  we 
are  marching  rapidly  toward  that  day  when  the 
spiritual  will  take  a  primary  place  in  life  and  be 
emancipated  from  the  hitherto  dominance  of  the 
physical. 

A  further  examination  of  this  particular 
author,  and  possibly  of  others  who  draw  similar 
conclusions,  would  show  that  he  entirely  mistakes 
the  part  which  heredity  plays,  as  when,  for  exam- 
ple, he  speaks  of  Jesus  inheriting  from  His 
mother  " faith  in,  and  surrender  to,  God."  We 
shall  show  later  on  that  moral  and  spiritual,  in- 
dividual as  distinguished  from  race,  qualities  are 
not  transmissible  by  heredity.  (Vid.  chapter 
VII.)  Nor  is  he  scientifically  justified  when  he 
says  (p.  105):  "The  pre-natal  influence  of  the 
mother  on  the  child  was  a  channel  of  grace,  con- 
firming the  tendency  of  faith." 

Finally,  the  question  may  be  considered  to 
have  bearings  in  three  directions:  (1)  The  in- 
tegrity of  the  manuscripts.  That  is  a  question 
for  the  lower  or  textual  critics  to  decide.  (2)  The 
influence  of  the  doctrine  of  hereditary  sin  in  the 
origin  of  the  account  in  the  Gospels.  That  ques- 


40    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tion  the  higher  critics  may  decide.  (3)  The  the- 
ological bearing  of  the  account.  That  is  simply 
nothing.  The  theologian  may  look  on  in  serene 
indifference  while  the  question  is  being  settled  by 
the  two  sets  of  scholars  mentioned,  knowing  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Sonship  of  Jesus  is  not  in- 
volved in  the  least  degree.  As  already  stated,  it 
may  not  always  have  been  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  the  theologian.  There  may  have  been  a 
time  when  everything  from  his  point  of  view 
seemed  to  hang  from  it.  But  to  emphasize  this 
fact  is  only  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  higher 
critic,  who  may  claim,  if  the  case  is  made  strong 
enough,  that  the  story  is  accounted  for  by  that 
fact.  It  may  still  be  a  matter  of  weight,  although 
involved  in  much  difficulty,  to  the  theologian  who 
has  inherited  a  scientific  doctrine,  now  quite  gen- 
erally repudiated,  that  a  spiritual  or  moral  qual- 
ity is  a  subject  of  heredity.  It  may  still  seem  im- 
portant to  those  who  pin  their  faith  to  the  mar- 
velous and  the  extraordinary;  but  to  him  that 
believes  that  all  processes  of  nature,  common  and 
extraordinary  alike,  are  equally  manifestations 
of  the  divine,  and  may  be  used  by  God  as  the  in- 
strument of  His  plans,  it  can  not  matter  how  this 
controversy  is  settled.  His  faith  can  be  adjusted 
with  equal  ease  to  either  solution,  not  because  he 
has  a  spirit  of  indifference;  but  rather  because 
he  has  the  vision  of  God  as  filling  all  in  all.  Our 
contention  is  not  an  effort  to  eliminate  the  virgin 
birth  as  a  part  of  the  creed ;  we  have  no  interest 


ORIGINS  41 

in  that.  But  we  do  find  it  necessary  to  divorce 
from  that  belief  the  assumption  that  the  sinless- 
ness  of  Jesus  depends  upon  it.  For  such  a  con- 
clusion it  is  an  entirely  illogical  premise  and  is 
utterly  inadequate.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
transmissible  hereditary  sin,  if  Mary  is  the  sole 
human  parent  of  Jesus,  for  such  a  sequence  she 
must  be  removed  from  the  class  of  the  sinful. 
Eoman  Catholic  theologians  were  entirely  logical 
in  seeing  the  necessity  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Im- 
maculate Conception  of  Mary,  and  then  of  her 
mother  Anna,  and  all  down  the  line  of  her  an- 
cestry, if  they  would  be  thorough.  If  the  doctrine 
of  Original  sin  makes  the  virgin  birth  a  necessity 
to  faith,  there  will  be  exactly  the  same  necessity 
for  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of 
Mary  and  her  ancestry. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  CHILD   AS  A  FACT  GIVEN   BY   NATURE 

WITH  the  above  criticism  of  the  traditional  the- 
ological doctrine,  we  prefer  now  to  turn  away 
from  this  method  of  investigation  to  the  true  sci- 
entific method  of  recording  what  we  actually  see 
in  the  child  as  a  fact  of  nature. 

We  will  avoid  the  exegetical  method  for  sev- 
eral reasons:  1.  It  would  involve  an  estimate  of 
the  point  of  view  of  Biblical  writers,  after  the 
methods^of  the  Higher  Criticism ;  e.  g.,  What  must 
be  said  of  Psalm  51:5,  "Behold,  I  was  brought 
forth  in  iniquity;  and  in  sin  did  my  mother  con- 
ceive me?"  Is  it  scientific  prose;  or  poetic  emo- 
tion? Is  it  a  doctrinal  enunciation;  or  the  out- 
burst of  a  penitent  heart  concerning  an  individual 
experience?  We  fancy  that  the  outcome  of  such 
an  examination  would  be  somewhat  affected  by 
the  personal  equation. 

2.  The  history  of  exegesis  has  shown  that  pre- 
vious views  have  the  deciding  influence  in  exe- 
getical balances,  where  Scripture  passages,  seem- 
ingly in  opposition,  can  be  quoted  on  both  sides. 
So  from  the  Biblical  side  I  satisfy  myself  with  re- 

42 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE    48 

calling  the  words  of  Jesus,  "Of  such  is  the  King- 
dom of  heaven,"  as  equally  weighty  with  any- 
thing that  can  be  quoted  against  them,  and  pass 
to  what  I  believe  a  more  decisive  method  of  in- 
vestigation.* Until  the  data  and  methods  of  exe- 
gesis are  more  correctly  defined  it  will  hardly  be 
a  sufficient  method  of  settling  even  theological 
questions.  The  age-long  controversy  concerning 
the  method  of  baptism,  which  bade  fair  to  be 
eternal  on  the  battlefield  of  exegesis,  received  its 
quietus  when  ' '  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apos- 
tles" was  discovered  or  recovered  from  its  long 
hiding.  An  ounce  of  fact  is  worth  a  ton  of  argu- 
ment. 


*  We  may  anticipate  the  probability  that  those  who  regard  us  in  error  in  rejecting 
the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin  will  bring  forward  some  of  the  passages  of  Scripture  that 
have  bfeen  used  to  perpetuate  that  doctrine.  Our  limits  do  not  permit  us  to  take  up 
those  passages  in  detail  and  show  them  harmonious  with  our  position.  We  can  only 
say  that  we  feel  that  our  Scriptural  authority  is  sufficient  in  building  on  this  saying  of 
Jesus — "of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  heaven."  No  possible  interpretation  of  these  words 
can  leave  standing  the  doctrine  that  children  are  sinful  when  born.  If  now  some  one 
is  able  to  show  that  other  passages  of  Scripture  are  incompatible  with  it,  while  not  inter- 
ested in  making  Scripture  thus  contradict  itself,  we  are  not  moved  from  our  standpoint  by 
it.  In  caseof  acontradictionbetweenJesusandsomeotherormany  other  Scripture  writers, 
we  stand  by  the  word  of  Jesus  as  invincible  authority.  In  case  of  an  apparent  contra- 
diction, as  by  the  words  of  David — "in  sin  did  my  mother  conceive  me" — we  would 
seek  if  possible  some  explanation  that  would  not  make  out  such  a  direct  contradiction 
between  Jesus  and  David,  such  as:  this  passage  is  an  expression  of  extreme  emotion 
and  not  intended  as  a  statement  of  universal  application;  it  is  a  poetical  statement,  and 
must  not  be  interpreted  as  prose,  etc.  Our  motive  would  be  to  relieve  Scripture  of  con- 
tradiction, and  it  would  never  occur  to  us  that  even  several  such  passages  would  make 
it  necessary  to  conclude  that  Jesues  was  mistaken  in  a  statement  so  very  simple,  whose 
meaning  is  incontrovertible,  and  whose  interpretation  can  not  be  twisted  in  support  of 
the  doctrine  which  we  renounce.  In  other  words,  a  clear  word  of  Jesus  is  of  such  pre- 
eminent authority  that  it  can  not  be  overthrown  by  any  number  of  other  writers,  even 
writers  in  the  Scriptures  themselves.  Furthermore,  if  we  have  found  an  unmistakable 
teaching  of  Jesus,  why  must  we  seek  further  light  in  an  age  admittedly  dark?  For  pur- 
poses of  corroboration,  it  is  needless;  for  purposes  of  refutation,  it  is  futile;  it  could  only 
be  useful  when  the  word  of  Jesus  was  of  uncertain  meaning. 


44    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

WHAT  DOES  THE  BOOK  OF  LIFE  TELL  Us  OF  A  CHILD 
AT  THE  TIME  OF  ITS  ENTRANCE  INTO  THE  WORLD  ? 

That  book  presents  us  with  an  animal,  indis- 
tinguishable up  to  this  point  from  the  other  ani- 
mals that  inhabit  the  earth.  I  now  quote  at  large 
from  Prof.  Edward  Porter  St.  John,  who  is  an 
authority  good  enough  in  science  and  religion  to 
have  his  findings  in  the  Sunday  School  Journal. 

"  Every  human  being  begins  his  existence  in 
the  form  of  a  one-celled  germ,  which  is  anatom- 
ically and  biologically  very  like  the  lowest  forms 
of  animal  life  that  are  known.  Later  the  embryo 
takes  on  a  wormlike  character.  This  is  followed 
at  about  the  third  week  of  development  by  what 
embryologiste  universally  call  the  fish  stage.  The 
body  is  elongated,  there  are  four  finlike  limbs,  the 
lungs  appear  only  as  a  bladder-like  rudiment,  and 
the  neck  is  furnished  with  gill  slits.  There  are 
other  resemblances  in  the  shape  of  the  brain  and 
face. 

"At  about  the  beginning  of  the  third  month 
the  gills  have  disappeared,  the  lungs  have  de- 
veloped, and  the  limbs  have  taken  on  marked  char- 
acteristics of  reptilian  life.  At  the  fourth  month 
the  spine  has  the  double  curve  of  the  lower  verte- 
brates. In  the  sixth  month  the  whole  body,  except 
the  palms  of  the  hands  and  the  soles  of  the  feet 
and  a  few  other  small  spots,  is  covered  with  a  fine, 
dark  hair,  known  as  the  lanugo.  The  direction  of 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE    45 

the  growth  of  this  hair  on  various  parts  of  the 
body  is  precisely  like  that  on  the  corresponding 
parts  of  the  bodies  of  apes  and  monkeys;  for 
example,  from  the  shoulder  to  the  elbow  the  hair 
points  down,  from  the  wrist  to  the  elbow  the  di- 
rection is  reversed.  This  hair  usually  falls  off 
before  birth,  though  occasionally  it  persists  on 
the  scalp  for  some  time,  to  be  replaced  later  by 
the  growth  that  is  characteristic  of  men. 

"At  about  this  time  the  hands  and  the  feet 
of  the  fetus  are  practically  alike,  the  great  toe 
being  shorter  than  the  others  and  projecting  at 
an  angle,  as  in  the  case  of  apes.  Through  several 
of  the  stages  the  fetus  has  a  clearly  defined  tail, 
and  at  one  period  it  is  longer  than  the  legs,  as 
in  some  of  the  highest  mammals.  Throughout 
these  various  stages  of  prenatal  development  the 
brain  and  the  nervous  system  show  very  close 
likeness  to  those  of  the  animals  of  the  correspond- 
ing levels. 

"Even  at  birth  the  body  of  the  child  in  some 
particulars  resembles  that  of  the  ape  more  than 
that  of  the  adult  man.  ...  In  some  of  the  early 
instincts  the  likeness  between  the  child  and  the 
lower  animals  is  quite  marked.  Especially  re- 
markable is  the  fact  that  for  a  few  weeks,  begin- 
ning a  few  hours  after  birth,  the  child  will  sup- 
port its  entire  weight  for  periods  lasting  from  a 
few  seconds  to  nearly  two  minutes  by  clinging 
with  the  hands  to  a  cane  or  similar  object.  The 
power  to  do  this  is  soon  lost,  and  does  not  re- 


46    MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

appear  until  a  much  later  period."  (Sunday 
School  Journal,  1910.) 

I  have  made  this  extended  quotation  to  show 
that  this  child  is  so  evidently  related  to  other  ani- 
mals thus  far  in  its  history  that  we  are  justified 
in  calling  it  an  animal,  unless  there  are  other  rev- 
elations that  make  it  transcend  the  animal  king- 
dom. Are  there  such  evidences? 

It  is  perhaps  quite  difficult  now  for  us  to  con- 
fine our  attention  to  just  what  we  see.  We  have 
seen  other  infants  grow  up  to  show  reason,  intelli- 
gence, conscience,  imagination,  and  other  marks 
of  personality  and  moral  character.  It  is  almost 
inevitable  that  we  think  this  being  has  all  of  these 
qualities,  but  for  the  present  that  it  does  not  know 
how  to  express  them,  or  that  they  are  in  a  sort 
of  undeveloped  state,  or — something;  we  may 
have  never  explained  to  ourselves  just  what.  We 
spontaneously  think  he  is  a  person;  he  has 
thoughts,  if  we  only  knew  how  to  get  at  them. 
But  this  is  allowing  imagination,  and  not  obser- 
vation, to  form  our  convictions.  The  child  is  what 
we  see;  we  have  no  good  right  to  read  into  him 
what  we  have  seen  developed  into  other  children 
that  had  the  same  kind  of  beginning.  It  would 
require  much  marshaling  of  technical  authorities 
to  prove  this  in  detail.  I  do  not  feel  called  upon 
to  prove  a  negative,  but  simply  to  call  attention 
to  what  the  living  child  testifies.  This  little  be- 
ing has  no  morals ;  he  has  not  even  thoughts ;  he 
can  not  see  objects  or  discern  colors ;  he  has  not 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE    47 

even  perception,  much  less  conceptions  or  ideas. 
"Infancy  is  mental  vacuity.  Human  life  makes 
its  appearance  wholly  destitute  of  intellectual  con- 
tent. And  not  only  is  there  the  absence  of  knowl- 
edge, but  also  of  the  power  of  knowing.  Mind 
potentially  is  a  substantial  foundation  of  powers 
and  ideas,  but  at  first  there  are  neither  ideas  nor 
powers."  (L.  R.  Fiske:  "Man  Building,"  251-2.) 
If  the  above  can  be  said  of  the  mental  powers 
of  the  child,  much  more  may  it  be  said  of  the 
moral  powers.  Infancy  is  moral  vacuity.  Human 
life  makes  its  appearance  wholly  destitute  of 
moral  content.  The  conscience,  or  moral  nature 
of  a  child,  is  a  vessel,  indeed ;  but  it  is  absolutely 
empty  at  birth  of  moral  ideas  and  of  moral  char- 
acter, either  in  the  form  of  merit  or  demerit. 
The  view  of  De  Pressense  is  as  follows:  "Man 
begins  with  purely  instinctive  life,  without  any 
clear  consciousness  of  itself.  In  this  phase  the 
individuality,  the  ego,  the  person,  exists  only  in 
germ,  and  is  not  separable  from  indistinct  im- 
pressions of  which  it  is  vaguely  the  subject.  This 
instinctive  life  makes  man  in  the  first  stage  of 
his  existence  closely  akin  to  the  animal,  though 
there  are  already  indications  of  the  essential  dif- 
ference which  will  ultimately  appear  between 
them.  .  .  .  It  is  governed  by  the  sensations,  af- 
fected and  modified  by  them,  and  apparently  sub- 
merged, like  the  swimmer  who  can  not  lift  his 
head  above  the  rapid  stream  that  is  carrying  him 
along.  He  does  not  truly  know,  because  he  does 


48    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

not  clearly  distinguish  himself  from  the  object 
affecting  him.  Instinctive  knowledge  is  then  only 
sensation  more  or  less  confused.  The  will,  at  this 
stage,  is  nothing  but  an  impulse  urging  on  to  a 
blind  movement,  under  the  influence  of  the  in- 
stinctive feeling  which  makes  man  seek  the  pleas- 
ant and  avoid  the  painful."  ("A  Study  of  Ori- 
gins," 251,  252.)  He  sums  up  the  activities  of 
the  soul  in  the  three  faculties:  to  know,  to  love, 
to  will.  The  infant  has  none  of  these  faculties  in 
exercise.  He  is  classified  as  a  human  being,  not 
because  of  the  manifestation  of  either  of  these 
or  of  any  other  faculty  distinctly  human,  but 
solely  because  of  his  birth  from  human  parents 
and  the  known  development  of  other  beings  like 
him.  The  infant  has  few  instincts,  and  these  in- 
complete, but  he  has  an  enormous  capacity  to 
learn. 

"  The  baby  new  to  earth  and  sky, 

What  time  his  tender  palm  is  prest 
Against  the  circle  of  the  breast, 
Has  never  thought  that  'this  is  I.' 

But  as  he  grows  he  gathers  much, 
And  learns  the  use  of  'I'  and  'me,' 
And  finds  'I  am  not  what  I  see, 

And  other  than  the  things  I  touch.' 

So  rounds  he  to  a  separate  mind 
From  whence  clear  memory  may  begin, 
As  thro'  the  frame  that  binds  him  in 

His  isolation  grows  defined." 

— Tennyson:  In  Memoriam.    XLV. 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE    49 

WHAT,  THEN,  Is  THIS  NEW-BOBN  BABY? 

He  is  not  a  moral  being.  He  is  not  even  an 
intellectual  being.  If  we  say  he  is  an  animal, 
what  is  implied  in  that  statement?  It  would  be 
quite  beside  our  present  purpose  to  describe  his 
muscular  and  anatomical  construction.  But  it  is 
not  so  far  from  our  purpose  to  sa,y  that  he  is  a 
nervous  organization.  All  his  present  reactions 
from  the  outside  world  are  nervous.  The  first 
nervous  response  from  his  new  habitat  is  a  gasp 
and  a  cry  that  establishes  his  new  respiratory 
method  of  life.  Now  and  increasingly  in  the  days 
just  ahead  of  him  there  are  various  actions  of 
which  he  is  capable,  but  they  are  all  nervous  re- 
sponses to  outward  stimuli,  plus  certain  inherited 
reflexes,  which  are  generally  known  as  instinctive 
tendencies.  He  does  nothing  as  the  result  of 
thought.  He  does  nothing  as  the  result  of  willing, 
and  consequently  he  does  nothing  as  the  product 
of  a  malicious  will  or  an  evil  disposition.  Never- 
theless we  will  hear  longheaded  observers  point- 
ing out  soon  the  evidences  of  his  fallen  nature. 
They  will  observe  that  he  is  mad.  They  will  soon 
see  that  he  is  stubborn,  etc.  And  they  can  point 
out  numerous  indications  very  soon  that  he  is 
acting  in  the  way  he  does  in  consequence  of  the 
sin  of  Adam. 

Before  we  leave  the  child  under  this  Adamic 
condemnation,  let  us  observe  a  kitten.  How  many 
days  after  its  birth  will  it  be  before  it  spits  at 

4 


50    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

you  when  you  act  upon  it  in  a  way  that  it  does 
not  like.  Can  it  not  show  a  pretty  good  case  of 
cat-stubbornness  and  strike-back-a-tive-ness,  while 
the  child  a.s  yet  is  quite  innocent  of  such  action? 
Is  it  sin  in  the  kitten  ?  Is  it  the  evil  nature  within 
it  resulting  from  the  transgression  of  some  primi- 
tive Adamic  cat?  If  this  is  absurd,  why  on  simi- 
lar evidence  do  we  condemn  the  child  ?  Before  the 
dawn  of  reason  and  of  the  moral  sense,  is  there 
anything  culpable  in  a  being  that  is  nothing  more 
than  a  nervous  machine  acting  in  a  manner  that 
tends  to  self-preservation?  At  this  stage,  is  not 
self-defensive  reaction  the  only  virtue  it  can  dis- 
play? For  the  time  divine  wisdom  can  do  noth- 
ing more  for  it. 

I  am  sure  that  I  shall  be  more  than  pardoned 
for  introducing  the  following  words,  so  illumina- 
tive of  this  point,  from  Prof.  Edward  Porter  St. 
John.  He  says:  "In  the  early  selfishness,  which 
later  gives  way  to  altruism,  we  gain  another 
glimpse  of  nature's  way  of  working.  .  .  .  One 
must  get  before  he  can  give,  and  so  she  bends  her 
energies  at  first  of  all  to  the  building  up  of  a 
strong  personality,  which  shall  be  able  to  serve 
another  generation.  There  are  certain  large 
moths  in  which  the  caterpillar  stage  lasts  for 
weeks  or  months,  during  which  time  the  insect 
lives  to  eat;  in  the  adult  stage,  when  they  have 
acquired  wings,  they  take  no  food  at  all,  and  live 
simply  to  prepare  for  the  next  generation.  Here 
is  nature's  parable  of  the  spiritual  life.  Here  is 


the  biological  explanation  of  the  unselfishness  of 
parents — and  of  the  selfishness  of  children  as  well. 

"But  in  the  egoism  of  the  child  we  can  see 
more  than  this  of  nature's  plans;  for  she  is  never 
inconsistent  with  herself,  and  the  development  of 
morality  is  one  of  her  chief  concerns.  Not  only 
is  it  true  that  morality  does  not  suffer  from  the 
natural  selfishness  of  the  child,  but  it  is  really 
dependent  upon  it.  In  the  development  of  almost 
every  one  of  its  elements  we  can  trace  an  egoistic 
or  selfish  stage.  The  child  feels  resentment  for 
a  wrong  done  to  himself.  If  it  were  not  so,  how 
could  he  ever  feel  indignation  for  a  wrong  done 
to  another?  The  boy  is  not  content  with  simply 
exhibiting  his  own  attainments;  he  must  outdo 
another.  The  self-feeling  which  now  finds  ex- 
pression in  rivalry,  will,  by  and  by,  manifest  itself 
in  the  positive  form  of  self-respect  and  the  nega- 
tive form  of  humility,  which  seem  more  admirable 
traits.  But  how  can  he  ever  feel  humility  unless 
he  measures  himself  by  another?  And  how  can 
he  so  well  gain  his  standards  of  self-respect  as 
by  comparing  himself  with  one  who  has  reached 
the  higher  level?  Until  a  child  has  built  up  a 
feeling  of  ownership  in  property  that  is  his  own, 
how  can  he  learn  to  sympathetically  regard  the 
property  rights  of  another?  Surely  God  has  not 
blundered  in  shaping  the  soul  of  a  child."  (Sun- 
day School  Journal,  1910,  p.  487.) 

The  fact  is  that  many  things  are  charged 
against  the  child  sheerly  because  he  can  not  de- 


52    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

fend  himself  against  the  slander,  and  has  to  re- 
ceive, under  adult  promises  of  punishment  if  he 
should  talk  back,  many  unpleasant  conclusions. 
A  little  girl  one  day  in  tears  said  to  her  mother, 
"When  you  do  that,  it  's  nervous;  when  I  do  it, 
it  's  naughty."  In  fact,  this  is  just  the  reverse 
of  the  truth.  An  adult  with  a  developed  con- 
science and  power  of  self-control  can  not  do  cer- 
tain things  without  moral  condemnation,  which  a 
child  might  do  as  the  reaction  of  a  nervous  or- 
ganization against  an  unpleasant  stimulus,  with- 
out feeling  any  sense  of  wrong.  This  little  nerv- 
ous organism,  a  full-blooded  member  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom,  and  only  a  candidate  for  the  human 
kingdom,  can  not  commit  a  sinful  act  until  there 
is  within  him,  given  by  some  process  profoundly 
mysterious,  a  standard  of  righteousness  and  ap- 
prehension of  a  Person  whose  rights  are  violated 
by  the  action.  As  yet  there  is  not  in  the  child 
the  first  gleam  of  such  a  standard,  nor  the  re- 
motest possibility  of  perceiving  such  a  Person. 
How  meaningless,  then,  to  speak  of  his  sinfulness, 
when  he  has  not  the  most  incipient  power  of  sin ! 
How  can  they  be  essentially  sinful  in  origin 
of  whom  one  can  so  beautifully  and  truthfully 
say:  "The  breath  of  God  breathes  in  them  and 
through  them  upon  our  concerns.  Motherhood 
dawns  when  they  appear,  and  the  inexpressible 
sanctity  and  tenderness  and  charm  that  wait  upon 
their  arrival  are  the  cardinal  blessings  of  life  in 
its  diviner  aspects.  Let  nothing  rob  us  of  this 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE     53 

humanness  which  proceeds  from  the  Everlasting 
Father;  permit  nothing  to  make  us  forget  that 
every  life  born  of  a  woman  is  a  visible  expression 
of  the  life  of  God.  Whatever  in  our  race  is  up- 
lifting and  most  worthy,  its  strength,  its  peren- 
nial honor,  its  divine  likeness  and  growth,  depend 
alike  on  childhood."  (Dr.  S.  P.  Cadman  in  Brook- 
lyn Eagle.) 

But  one  replies,  "The  child  has  a  sinful  na- 
ture." 

This  word  "nature"  is  made  to  do  large  work 
in  the  world.  Upon  its  very  vague  and  indefinite 
corporosity  are  piled  many  a  burden  of  logic, 
theology,  and  philosophy.  "What  do  people  mean 
by  a  sinful  nature  or  fallen  nature,  which  latter 
term  is  used  to  convey  the  same  meaning?  Is  a 
sinful  nature  a  nature  that  sins  T  No ;  it  can  not 
be  that :  for  we  have  seen  that  the  infant  can  not 
sin.  Well,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  a  sinful  na- 
ture is  one  that  will  develop  into  a  nature  that 
will  sin.  This  puts  sinfulness  back  in  the  order 
of  nature  where  there  is  no  volition,  no  moral 
choosing;  back  into  the  causal  order  of  things 
where  there  are  no  alternatives ;  back  in  the  iron 
grip  of  powers  that  can  not  be  other  than  they 
are,  and  for  which  no  one  but  God,  who  made 
them  so,  is  responsible.  If  there  is  one  heresy 
in  the  world  more  heretical  than  another,  it  is 
the  heresy  that  makes  God  the  author  of  sin. 
Moreover,  there  is  absolutely  no  logical  necessity 
for  this  assumption  of  the  sinfulness  of  human 


54    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

nature,  as  it  comes  from  the  hand  of  God.  The 
well-known  and  easily  observable  facts  concern- 
ing the  child  furnish  all  the  conditions  for  all  the 
actualizations  of  its  after-life. 

The  infant  is  an  animal.  It  is  not  sinful  for 
an  infant  to  be  an  animal  and  to  act  as  an  animal. 
But  it  is  sinful  for  an  infant  forever  to  remain 
an  animal,  and  after  reason  and  conscience  have 
arrived  to  act  as  an  animal.  This  child  is  an 
organization  of  physical  nerves  to-day;  but  to- 
morrow, by  some  process,  mysterious  under  any 
theory  of  his  life,  he  will  be  a  rational,  a  moral 
human  spirit,  without  losing  one  of  his  appetites 
or  fleshly  passions  or  nervous  impulses.  To-day 
he  can  not  act  differently  from  what  he  does  act, 
under  any  possibility  within  his  control;  but  to- 
morrow he  may  go  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  up 
or  down,  in  any  direction  in  which  his  animalism 
impels  him,  or  in  the  direction  in  which  his  higher 
spiritual  nature  draws.  The  animalism  of  his 
condition  accounts  for  all  the  facts  of  action  and 
tendency,  impulse  and  spiritual  struggle  that  the 
assumed  sinful  nature  accounted  for.  The  ani- 
mal nature,  which  is  undisputed,  provides  the  field 
of  moral  and  spiritual  conflict  that  will  last  as 
long  as  life  lasts.  In  this  struggle  there  is  no 
sin  implied,  but  a  condition  which  may  issue  in 
sin  at  any  moment  that  the  person  may  so  decide ; 
but  which  will  never  so  issue  of  necessity,  never 
unless  and  until  he  so  decides.  To  overcome  the 
animal,  subdue  the  animal,  rise  triumphant  above 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE     55 

the  animal,  is  life's  problem  of  personal  char- 
acter. 

In  the  struggle  with  animalism,  as  in  the  tra- 
ditional struggle  with  inbred  sin,  there  is  no  per- 
sonal deliverance  and  victory  except  through 
God's  aid,  which  is  graciously  offered  to  all,  and 
by  it  sinning  is  destroyed  as  a  necessity. 

It  is  not  the  problem  of  spiritual  life  to  kill 
this  animal,  which  God  gave  us  at  birth.  It  was 
God's  first  gift,  and  unmistakably  represents  His 
goodness  and  wisdom.  But  it  was  never  given 
us  as  representing  man's  final  condition;  rather 
it  is  only  the  starting-point  of  life.  As  such  it 
has  nothing  but  an  impelling  force.  It  can  not  see 
the  way  for  a  man;  it  can  not  appreciate  the 
worth  of  a  man ;  it  can  not  choose  the  way  or  the 
destiny  of  a  man.  It,  then,  needs  control,  limita.- 
tion,  denial,  guidance.  The  moral  problem  of 
life,  as  related  to  the  animal  nature,  is  contained 
in  these  actions  of  mastery  by  the  rational  na- 
ture.* We  are  never  to  attempt  to  destroy  any 
animal  impulse,  much  less  to  claim  that  by  the 
power  of  God's  grace  any  animal  impulse  has 
been  destroyed.  These  impulses  are  not  sinful. 
Life  under  grace  tends  to  their  strength  and 
health  rather  than  to  their  weakness  and  nega- 

*  "Men,  it  is  true,  no  longer  believe  in  the  devil's  agency;  at  least,  they  no  longer 
believe  in  the  power  of  calling  up  the  devil  and  transacting  business  with  him;  other- 
wise there  would  be  hundreds  of  such  stories  as  that  of  Faust.  But  the  spirit  which 
created  the  story  and  rendered  it  credible  to  all  Europe  remains  unchanged.  .  .  .  We 
do  not  make  compacts,  but  we  throw  away  our  lives;  we  have  no  tempter  face  to  face 
with  us,  offering  illimitable  powers  in  exchange  for  our  futurity;  but  we  have  our  own 
desires,  imperious,  insiduous,  and  for  them  we  bartor  our  existence — for  one  moment's 
pleasure  risking  years  of  anguish." — (Lewes:  "Life  of  Goethe,"  II,  270.) 


56    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tion.  Their  destruction  is  not  sanctification,  as 
many  suppose ;  but  is  rather  the  retributive  effect 
of  their  unrestrained  abuse.  They  are  to  be  used 
and  mastered  in  the  interest  of  the  rational  life, 
under  the  over-guidance  of  divine  law  and  pur- 
pose, by  the  assistance  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 

It  is  an  ordinary  assumption  that  sin  inheres 
in  the  flesh.  Writers  who  treat  of  the  nature  of 
Jesus  argue  that  it  was  necessary  for  His  per- 
sonality to  have  a  fleshly  nature  in  which  there  is 
no  taint.  Says  one  writer:  "How  much  more, 
then,  in  the  nature  of  things,  is  it  necessary  that 
He  who  came  to  redeem  men  from  sin  should  Him- 
self be  without  sin  in  His  own  flesh !  An  immacu- 
late spirit  demands  an  immaculate  organism." 
(Cooke:  "Incarnation  and  Eecent  Criticism," 
147.)  What  can  this  mean?  It  is  hard  to  an- 
swer, unless  we  assume  that  the  absence  of  sin 
in  the  flesh  will  be  evidenced  by  the  absence  of 
fleshly  appetite,  passion,  impulse.  But  such  an 
absence  is  not  purity,  it  is  mutilation,  destruction 
of  the  bodily  function  in  one  form  or  another.  It 
is  something  that  has  no  analogy  or  suggestion  in 
the  experience  of  Christians.  The  Christian  who 
attains  the  highest  degree  and  experience  of  pu- 
rity does  not  thereby  lose  any  animal  appetite 
or  passion;  he  receives  only  such  a  spiritual  en- 
dowment that  he  is  able  completely  to  control 
them.  This  control  is  the  vital  and  sufficient  thing 
in  a  member  of  our  race.  Not  absence  of  conflict, 
but  victory,  is  human  excellence.  This  demand 


THE  CHILD  AS  GIVEN  BY  NATURE     57 

for  the  elimination  of  passion  and  appetite,  usu- 
ally prejudged  by  being  called  "sinful  appetites 
and  passions,"  arises  probably  from  the  assump- 
tion that  animal  appetites  and  passions  are  in 
themselves  sinful.  But  this  throws  the  burden  of 
sinfulness  back  on  to  God,  who  alone  is  respon- 
sible for  human  nature  in  this  form,  and  who  in 
the  beginning  pronounced  them  good. 

A  little  reflection  will  bring  the  conviction  that 
sin  is  a  moral  thing;  a  something  where  choice 
is  involved;  something  which  pertains  to  the  will 
and  the  spirit;  something  which  is  not  grounded 
in  a  nature ;  not  an  unavoidable,  normal  impulse ; 
not  a  thing  for  the  elminiation  of  which  no  pro- 
vision is  made  by  grace  through  faith  in  Jesus. 
Sin  has  a  moral  remedy;  but  appetite  and  pas- 
sion have  none  except  drugs  and  the  surgeon's 
knife. 

Have  we,  then,  merely  substituted  one  term  for 
another — the  term  animalism  for  sin!  Is  this  all 
a  discussion  about  words?  I  think  that  can 
hardly  be  said.  The  whole  conception  has  been 
changed.  The  traditional  view  had  a  sin  on  its 
hand  for  which  there  was  no  rational  cause,  either 
human  or  divine.  The  human  causation,  Adam's 
primeval  sin,  always  involved  injustice,  confusion 
of  moral  conceptions,  and  an  irrational  philoso- 
phy. It  has  long  been  rejected  by  scientific  minds. 
The  assumed  divine  causation  reflected  on  the 
goodness  and  equity  of  God,  and  should  be  given 
up  in  the  interest  of  divine  honor,  even  if  we 


58    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

are  left  without  any  means  of  accounting  for  the 
moral  history  of  the  individual.  Our  explana- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  throws  back  no  great 
burden  of  responsibility  on  the  first  man;  allows 
the  wisdom,  the  goodness,  and  the  justice  of  God 
to  stand  unchallenged,  and  at  the  same  time  af- 
fords every  datum  of  explanation  of  the  subse- 
quent history  of  the  child  that  the  traditional 
view  possessed.  And  it  does  much  more :  it  allows 
us  to  use  physical  descriptions  of  physical  condi- 
tions, and  reserves  to  us  the  word  "sin"  for  ap- 
plication to  a  fact  purely  moral  and  spiritual.  It 
gives  us  a  rational  and  possible  basis  for  a  life 
of  struggle,  which  no  man  ever  could  avoid,  what- 
ever his  professions  and  claims,  which  life  God 
can  smile  upon  and  reward.  It  gives  an  expli- 
cable view  of  the  sanctified  life,  which,  under  the 
supposition  that  animal  propensity  was  sin,  was 
made  impossible  and  absurd.  These  are  not  small 
contributions  to  an  explanation  of  our  spiritual 
life  and  its  reconciliation  with  our  actual  life  in 
the  body.  Moreover,  it  creates  no  difficulties  to 
offset  its  gains,  unless  it  be  the  straightening  out 
of  some  exegesis  based  on  the  materialistic  view 
of  sin.  Having  meditated  much  upon  it,  I  know 
of  no  Scripture  that  may  not  be  explained  in  an 
atmosphere  of  candor,  although  there  are  several 
that  may  be  quoted  in  a  controversial  spirit. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  BIRTH  OP  THE  SPIRIT 

HAS  the  child  a  soul?  Lotze  places  the  proof  of 
a  soul  in  the  possession  of  a  unity  of  conscious- 
ness. The  test  seems  to  be  that  a  being  having  a 
soul  (or  a  rational  spirit)  is  one  that  recognizes 
itself  as  one  being,  or  the  experiences  which  it 
has  as  belonging  to  its  one  self.  It  is  doubtful  if 
the  child  can  stand  this  test.  His  reactions 
against  the  external  world  are  purely  nervous. 
The  nerves  feel  pain,  but  the  child  is  not  conscious 
of  a  pained  self.  His  hands  and  feet  are  as  ex- 
ternal to  his  consciousness  as  any  other  objects 
he  may  see.  To  say  that  he  has  a  potential  soul, 
a  something  that  will  come  to  unity  of  conscious- 
ness soon,  may  be  true  enough.  It  is  immaterial 
to  our  discussion,  and  its  investigation  would  lead 
us  far  afield.  It  is  enough  to  notice  that  such  a 
soul  is  of  no  value  to  his  present  constitution  of 
moral  character. 

That  the  new-born  child  has  an  animal  soul, 
a  forming  principle  which  builds  his  body  and 
animates  it,  is  beyond  question.  As  much  pos- 
sibly can  be  said  for  the  cell  which  was  its  start- 
ing-point of  being.  But  that  he  has  not  a  ra- 

59 


60    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tional  mind,  rendering  him  capable  of  moral  ac- 
tion, is  almost  as  indisputable  as  that  the  cell 
had  not.  The  relation  between  these  two,  the  cell 
and  the  rational  nature,  constitutes  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  intricate  problems  of  human 
life.  Whether  the  Bible  holds  to  a  tripartite  or 
dual  nature  for  man  is,  I  believe,  an  unsolved 
puzzle.  According  to  Franz  Delitsch,  in  his  great 
work,  " Biblical  Psychology,"  (103),  the  Scrip- 
tures make  a  sharp  distinction  between  flesh  and 
spirit,  and  yet  the  flesh  is  endowed  with  soul. 
This  soul  of  flesh  the  child  has;  but  there  is  as 
yet  no  exhibition  of  the  spirit.  When  is  this 
higher  spirit  born? 

Evolutionary  philosophy  can  not  furnish  us 
an  answer.  There  are  two  things  for  which  Evo- 
lution has  no  explanation,  nor  can  it  give  us  the 
slightest  hint  concerning  their  origin.  They  are : 
the  origin  of  life  and  the  origin  of  spirit.  Many 
attempts  have  been  made  to  deduce  life  from  mat- 
ter ;  but  they  have  always  been  unsuccessful,  and 
for  the  time  being,  at  least,  they  are  now  definitely 
abandoned.  Just  as  little  can  Evolution  account 
for  the  introduction  of  spirit.  This  task,  then, 
we  may  place  beyond  human  power  to  perform. 
We  can  not,  apart  from  revelation,  give  any  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  the  human  spirit.  Its  ex- 
istence we  accept  as  a  fact ;  the  evidences  of  it  are 
abundant;  but  whence  and  how  it  came  to  be  we 
have  nothing  to  say,  except  that  the  Bible  says 
we  are  sons  of  God.  If  Traducianism  be  true,  that 


THE  BIETH  OF  THE  SPIRIT          Gl 

the  spirit  of  the  child  is  derived  from  the  spirits 
of  the  parents,  we  might  assume  that  it  originated 
at  conception;  though  the  assumption  would  not 
be  compelled  and  in  itself  is  very  difficult.  If  the 
origin  of  the  spirit  is  subsequent  to  conception 
and  previous  to  birth,  it  then  seems  a  necessity 
of  belief  that  the  child's  spirit  is  derived  from  its 
mother,  but  not  from  its  father.  The  difficulties 
that  gather  about  Traducianism  seem  to  make  it 
an  almost  impossible  belief.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  we  accept  the  doctrine  of  Creationism,  that  each 
human  spirit  is  a  direct  creation  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  the  time  of  its  origin  may  fall  within  a 
wide  range. 

When  the  spirit  is  born,  is  about  as  easy  to 
answer  as  where  it  is  located,  a  question  which 
has  been  one  of  the  puzzles  of  philosophers,  little 
and  big,  of  all  ages.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  Joseph 
Cook  lectured  on  this  subject  in  his  Boston  course 
more  than  thirty  years  ago.  But  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  he  solved  the  mystery. 

The  pre-existence  of  the  spirit  as  pictured  by 
Wordsworth  in  the  following  lines,  is  a  beautiful 
poetic  conception;  but  hardly  needs  serious  dis- 
cussion. Its  truth  or  untruth  is  outside  the  limits 
of  our  investigation. 

"  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting: 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  cometh  from  afar ; 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 


62     MOBAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home: 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy  ; 
Shades  of  the  prison  house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  boy, 
But  he  beholds  the  light  and  whence  it  flows. 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy ; 

The  youth  whom  daily  farther  from  the  east 
Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  Priest, 
And  by  the  vision  splendid 
Is  on  his  way  attended ; 
At  length  the  man  perceives  it  die  away ; 
And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day." 

(Wordsworth:  "Ode  to  Immortality,"  V.) 

The  uncritical,  no  doubt,  assume  that  a  child 
is  born  with  a  rational  spirit  and  may  lift  their 
eyebrows  in  astonishment  that  such  a  position 
could  ever  be  questioned.  But  such  persons  would 
be  at  their  wits J  end  if  they  should  be  asked  when 
the  spirit  became  identified  with  the  child's  body. 
Was  it  when  it  was  a  single  cell?  Was  it  when 
it  was  in  the  fish  stage  1  or  in  the  reptilian  stage  ? 
or  the  simian  stage?  Did  it  come  to  it  at  its  first 
gasp  for  breath  ?  Did  its  first  cry  become  the  an- 
guish of  a  human  spirit?  I  fancy  that  it  would 
be  rather  difficult  to  reply  affirmatively  to  any 
of  these  questions,  and  I,  at  least,  will  not  have 
the  temerity  to  reply  negatively.  If  we  reason 
from  the  analogy  of  the  origin  of  the  body,  and 
suppose  that  the  spirit  is  not  the  product  of  any 
one  moment  of  time,  and  that  only  its  germinal 
potentiality  is  given  in  birth,  and  that  this  poten- 
tiality in  no  wise  functions  as  it  does  in  its  com- 
plete manifestation,  we  may  best  account  for  all 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  SPIRIT          63 

the  facts.  The  ground  for  assuming  this  poten- 
tial beginning  is  admittedly  a  priori.  We  can  not 
observe  in  the  child  any  more  evidences  of  spirit 
than  we  can  in  the  kitten;  but  we  believe  it  be- 
longs to  the  genus  homo,  and  if  not  an  idiot,  has 
powers  which  will  unfold  into  spirit-action  after 
awhile,  and  respond  to  environment  as  the  kitten 
never  will. 

Of  one  thing,  however,  there  can  hardly  be  a 
dispute:  at  birth  the  human  spirit,  if  existent  at 
all,  has  not  come  to  its  manifestation.  So  our  in- 
quiry may  take  the  form:  when  does  it  come  to 
manifestation,  so  as  to  be  clothed  with  moral 
freedom  and  human  responsibility?  For  myself 
there  are  no  more  rational  difficulties  in  assuming 
that  the  spirit  is  coming  to  its  birth  than  there  are 
in  assuming  that  it  is  coming  to  its  manifestation 
and  responsibility.  But  our  purpose  is  equally 
served  with  the  question  in  either  form. 

A  child  may  profitably  be  contemplated  as 
two  selves:  his  realized  self;  what  he  can  do. 
This  depends  upon  his  past ;  what  he  has  learned 
to  do.  Second,  his  potential  self;  what  he  can 
learn  to  do  and  may  become.  This  latter  depends 
upon  the  contribution  of  others.  His  potential 
self  is  not  yet  born  or  actualized.  If  at  birth 
thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  what  he  can  do 
is  quite  insignificant.  He  will  never  be  able  to 
talk,  and  without  speech  his  thought  will  always 
be  infantile  and  meager.  One  writer  has  said  that 
he  can  never  be  a  person  unless  he  mingles  with 


64    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

persons.  It  is  certain  that  lie  will  be  so  circum- 
scribed in  power,  lie  will  be  so  unlike  other  per- 
sons that  we  know  a.s  such,  that  the  remark  is 
practically  true.  A  new-born  babe,  henceforth 
cared  for  by  some  kind  animal,  such  as  the  fabled 
wolf  which  suckled  Romulus  and  Remus,  and 
never  coming  in  contact  with  human  kind,  would 
be  such  a  defective  human  being,  and  so  much 
like  the  animals  with  which  he  grew  up,  that  there 
would  be  no  suggestion  of  personality  except  the 
form  of  his  body.  So  the  real  self  is  the  second 
self,  which  is  yet  to  become  after  his  physical 
birth,  and  the  contribution  to  his  being  is  chiefly 
through  the  mother  and  father  who  watch  over 
him.  They  are  giving  birth  to  him  all  through 
the  years  of  his  developing  selfhood. 

In  assuming  the  possibility  of  a  germinal  ori- 
gin of  the  spirit  apart  from  the  germinal  origin 
of  the  body,  we  recognize  that  we  are  quite  be- 
yond the  boundary  of  the  known.  However,  the 
supposition  will  be  justified  if  by  it  we  can  ra- 
tionalize, even  in  a  small  degree,  this  very  mys- 
terious realm.  The  objections  to  it  seem  to  be 
born  chiefly  from  materialism,  and  make  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality  impossible.  In  our  specula- 
tion we  are  doing  much  the  same  as  we  do  after 
the  death  of  the  body.  It  is  about  as  much  out- 
side the  realm  of  the  known  to  imagine  the  spirit 
as  existing  after  the  physical  dissolution  of  the 
body  as  it  is  to  imagine  the  physical  organism 
before  birth  as  not  yet  inhabited  with  a  spirit.  It 


THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  SPIRIT          65 

is  quite  as  rational  to  assume  that  the  spirit  is 
a  separate  direct  creation  of  God  as  it  is  to  believe 
that  the  spirit  "returns  to  God  who  gave  it"  after 
the  body  is  placed  in  the  grave.  If  the  latter  is 
a  belief  dear  to  all  the  world,  the  former  may  well 
be  used  as  its  harmonious  if  not  inevitable  foun- 
dation. 

In  the  attainment  of  human  condition  the  child 
has  a  long  way  to  go — farther  than  any  other  ani- 
mal born  into  the  world.  There  is  more  differ- 
ence between  the  infant  homo  and  the  adult  homo 
than  between  the  infancy  and  adulthood  of  any 
other  being  which  comes  into  the  world.  Not  only 
is  the  distance  to  be  traveled  greater,  but  there  is 
actually  to  be  a  translation  from  one  kind  of  be- 
ing into  another,  which  does  not  occur  with  any 
other  being  subject  to  birth.  Says  Major  J.  W. 
Powell  ("From  Barbarism  to  Civilization,"  505, 
p.  97) :  "Every  child  is  born  destitute  of  things 
possessed  in  manhood,  which  distinguishes  him 
from  the  lower  animals.  Of  all  industries  he  is 
artless;  of  all  languages  he  is  speechless;  of  all 
reasoning  he  is  thoughtless;  of  all  philosophies 
he  is  opinionless ;  but  arts,  institutions,  languages, 
opinions,  and  mentations  he  acquires  as  the  years 
go  by  from  childhood  to  manhood.  In  all  these 
respects  the  new-born  babe  is  hardly  the  peer  of 
the  new-born  beast;  but  as  the  years  go  by,  ever 
and  ever  he  exhibits  his  superiority  in  all  of  the 
great  classes  of  activities,  until  the  distance  by 
which  he  is  separated  from  the  brute  is  so  great 

5 


66     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

that  his  realm  of  existence  is  in  another  kingdom 
of  nature. ' ' 

The  prolonged  infancy  of  the  child  not  only 
means  that  he  is  born  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder 
and  ''crawls  to  maturity"  at  a  far  slower  pace 
than  any  of  the  animal  species;  but  also  that  he 
climbs  so  much  higher.  The  lion  is  as  old  at  three 
and  six  years  as  man  is  at  fifteen  and  twenty-five, 
and  yet  it  lives  to  half  the  total  age  of  the  man. 
Its  infancy  is  only  one-fifth  as  long;  its  adulthood 
is  almost  equal.  Moreover,  this  prolonged  infancy 
belongs  only  to  those  races  of  men  who  achieve 
the  highest  attainments  of  civilization.  The  Aleu- 
tian boy  is  an  independent  hunter  at  ten,  and  may 
marry.  In  Tahiti,  children  become  practically 
free  from  parental  control  at  eight,  and  may  set 
up  a  sort  of  group  life  for  themselves.  (Cham- 
berlain: "The  Child,"  53.)  Says  Tyler:  "Man 
is  a  being  of  extraordinary  complexity  and  of  in- 
numerable possibilities.  He  can  rise  to  the 
heights  of  wisdom  and  power  of  which  we  as  yet 
have  little  conception,  or  he  can  sink  lower  than 
any  brute.  He  can  press  upward  in  the  line  of 
progress,  can  stray  or  straggle  from  the  line  of 
march,  or  stagnate  or  turn  back.  He  has  more 
possibilities  of  failure  than  the  lower  animal,  and 
the  attractions  and  allurements  to  stray  from  the 
upward  course  are  more  numerous  and  more 
powerful."  ("Man  in  Evolution,"  84.) 

Lessing  said  that  "education  was  revelation 
coming  to  the  individual  man. ' '  Spirit-formation, 


THE  BIETH  OF  THE  SPIRIT          67 

if  this  be  true,  is  not  synonymous  with  education : 
for  the  process  is  not  a  mere  revelation  of  the  out- 
side world;  because  there  are  required  certain 
subjective  changes  which  condition  the  incoming 
revelation.  At  the  first  the  child  can  take  in  a 
certain  class  of  impressions  only.  Before  others 
are  perceived  the  very  cells  of  the  brain  must 
undergo  transformation,  and  the  brain  come  to 
what  may  be  called  its  human  size.  The  new-born 
child  probably  does  not  use  the  front  or  intellec- 
tual part  of  the  brain — only  the  medulla,  and  per- 
haps only  the  nervous  ganglia  at  the  base  of  the 
skull  ("The  Child,"  81.)  If  spirit-birth  were 
education  merely,  then  the  time  of  its  arrival 
might  be  noted  when  the  child  had  attained  some 
standard  arbitrarily  fixed.  But  there  are  certain 
periods  in  child  development,  fixed  by  nature,  and 
they  are  by  no  means  arbitrarily  designated  rela- 
tively to  an  advancing  standard.  These  periods 
are  attained  and  passed  whether  we  note  them 
or  not,  and  condition  entrance  upon  the  succeeding 
stage.  If  we  know  what  a  human  spirit  is?  and 
how  it  acts,  we  can  easily  determine  when  it  has 
arrived,  though  we  may  not  have  perceived  the 
moment  of  its  coming.  We  can  easily  distinguish 
between  the  infantile  and  dependent  being  and  the 
adult  and  completely  responsible  spirit.  Nothing 
is  more  important  in  the  administration  of  the 
home  and  the  school  and  the  Church  than  knowl- 
edge of  these  periods  and  their  appropriate  activi- 
ties. Parental  responsibility  increases  as  childish 


68    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

irresponsibility  is  recognized.  If  the  infant  has 
not  a  rational  spirit,  the  parent  must  discharge 
the  functions  of  the  spiritual  life  for  the  child. 
If  the  child  of  six  years  has  not  come  to  moral  re- 
sponsibility, the  parent  must  assume  before  God 
and  the  community  that  responsibility  for  the 
child,  and  so  on  up  in  diminishing  measure  until 
the  youth  has  come  to  the  place  in  life  where  he 
may  bear  his  moral  burdens  on  his  own  shoulders. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IS  THEEE  A  MOKAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NATURE  ? 

IF  the  question  be  raised,  Is  there  a  bias  toward 
sin  in  human  nature,  as  we  know  it,  that  is  not  the 
consequence  of  actual  transgression  of  law  by  the 
individual  ?  we  can  not  return  an  answer  in  a  sim- 
ple word.  We  eliminate  the  case  of  actual  per- 
sonal transgression :  for  it  is  conceded  by  all  that 
in  such  a  person  there  has  resulted  a  weakness 
which  gives  sin  the  advantage  in  the  contest. 

In  answering  we  must  remember  that  human 
nature  is  complex — flesh  and  spirit,  with  the  pro- 
pensities and  qualities  of  each  in  their  various  re- 
lations. In  dealing  with  the  new-born  child  we 
have  to  deal  immediately,  as  we  have  seen,  only 
with  the  flesh.  But  as  this  child  is  the  individual 
that  is  to  become  a  complete  human  being,  we  are 
hardly  dealing  candidly  with  the  problem  unless 
we  seek  to  analyze  human  nature  as  it  is  in  its 
developed  but  normal  form.  It  might  be  con- 
ceded that  the  child  needs  no  change  of  nature, 
but  that  that  concession  does  not  inevitably  follow 
concerning  the  complete  human  being,  who  is  the 
normal  and  inevitable  development  of  the  child. 
So  we  must  face  the  question  in  its  application  to 

69 


70     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

the  human  being  that  has  arrived  at  the  full  form 
of  his  powers.  With  this  understanding  of  our 
question,  what  shall  be  our  answer? 

First,  we  consider  that  part  of  human  nature 
which  we  call  the  flesh:  The  animal  nature  cer- 
tainly does  furnish  the  conditions  which  make  a 
struggle  against  sin  necessary.  It  is  not  that  sin 
is  located  in  the  animal  nature,  or  that  its  work- 
ings are  sinful  in  themselves.  But  it  grows  out 
of  the  fact  that  animalism  has  nothing  in  it  but 
impulse.  It  has  no  self-limiting  power  within  it- 
self. It  has  nothing  but  a  tendency  to  function  or 
a  pressure  toward  gratification. 

Legitimate  gratification  is  not  sinful;  but  the 
flesh  does  not  of  itself  stop  at  the  line  of  legiti- 
macy. Its  only  tendency,  when  it  arrives  at  that 
line,  is  to  push  on.  But  the  passing  of  that  line 
is  sin ;  and  the  effort  to  hold  it  to  that  line  consti- 
tutes a  direct  struggle  of  the  spirit  with  the 
flesh.  The  sin  that  occurs  from  a  transgression 
of  the  boundary  is  not  a  sin  of  the  flesh — for  the 
flesh  can  not  sin ;  but  it  is  a  sin  of  the  spirit,  whose 
function  of  regency  in  the  personality  has  not 
been  made  good.  "Sin  is  no  factor  of  the  true 
humanity,  but  only  a  feature  of  empirical  human- 
ity which  is  absolutely  fatal  to  the  true.  What  is 
truly  human  is  not  sin,  but  the  power  to  be 
tempted  to  sin.  It  is  not  perdition,  but  freedom. ' ' 
(Forsyth:  "Person  and  Place  of  Jesus  Christ," 
302.) 

So  we  have  the  paradoxical  answer:  the  ani- 


MORAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NATUEE     71 

mal  nature  has  in  it  a  pull  toward  sin;  but  that 
pull  is  not  a  state  of  sin  or  an  act  of  sin.  The 
state  of  sin  is  that  condition  of  personality  in 
which  the  fleshly  impulse  is  enthroned.  The  de- 
gree of  sinfulness  of  the  state  is  a  balance  between 
the  intensity  of  the  fleshly  impulse  and  the 
strength  of  the  guiding  spirit ;  just  as  the  degree 
of  danger  in  a  horse  is  the  balance  between  the 
animal  spirits  of  the  horse  and  the  strength  of  the 
driver  who  guides  and  restrains  him.  The 
strength  of  the  first,  unmatched  by  the  strength 
of  the  other,  produces  a  condition  of  lawlessness 
and  wreckage.  The  act  of  sin  is  the  transgression 
of  the  legitimate  boundaries  of  fleshly  action. 
Neither  state  nor  act  is  inevitable  from  the  rela- 
tion of  flesh  and  spirit,  the  proffered  aid  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  being  always  assumed. 

The  question  as  it  relates  itself  to  the  working 
of  the  spirit  is  still  more  intricate.  There  are  cer- 
tain sins  that  are  not  the  result  of  the  operation 
of  the  flesh,  but  are  the  result  of  the  activities  of 
the  spirit  itself.  They  are  such  sins  as  pride, 
haughtiness,  selfishness,  self-indulgence,  etc. 

By  close  analysis  we  will  discover  that  these 
are  but  the  exaggerated  form  of  certain  germinal, 
fundamental,  personal  principles,  that  are  virtues. 
For  example,  self-respect  is  a  fundamental  virtue, 
without  which  character-building  is  impossible; 
but  the  exaggerated  forms  of  this  virtue  are  pride, 
vanity,  haughtiness,  etc.  Paul  says :  ' '  For  I  say 
through  grace  that  was  given  to  me,  to  every  man 


72      MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

that  is  among  you,  not  to  think  of  himself  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think;  but  so  to  think  as 
to  think  soberly,  according  as  God  has  dealt  to 
each  man  a  measure  of  faith."  (Bom.  12:3.) 
Here  it  is  clear  that  Paul  allows  that  one  should 
think  "highly"  of  himself.  Up  to  that  point  he 
is  virtuous ;  but  when  he  passes  a  certain  point  he 
becomes  vicious. 

Again,  self-love  is  a  fundamental  virtue,  fur- 
nishing the  fulcrum  for  all  moral  appeal,  and 
without  it  virtue  would  have  no  foundation  in 
human  motive ;  it  would  become  a  perfectly  capri- 
cious thing.  The  Bible  from  beginning  to  end  is 
full  of  appeals  to  this  fundamental  and  normal 
human  element.  It  is  represented  as  a  motive  in 
the  sacrificial  career  of  Jesus  Christ,  "Who  for 
the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him  endured  the 
cross,  despising  shame,  and  hath  sat  down  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God."  (Heb.  12:  2.) 
So  that  we  think  it  is  clear  that  self-love  is  a 
fundamental  excellence  in  human  or  even  in  di- 
vine nature.  But  its  exaggerated  working  is  self- 
ishness, in  its  manifold  forms — a  sin  so  compre- 
hensive that  it  has  been  estimated  as  the  one  cen- 
tral principle  of  all  sin. 

Recognizing  this  distinction  between  the  legiti- 
mate root-form  of  a  principle,  which  is  a  virtue, 
and  the  exaggerated  form,  which  is  a  sin,  are  we 
not  able  to  see  that  here  also  is  ground  for  a 
struggle  within  the  activities  of  the  spirit  itself, 
similar  to  that  which  we  have  seen  between  the 


MORAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NATURE     73 

flesh  and  the  spirit,  and  that  the  struggle  is  not 
of  itself  an  indication  of  a  sinful  condition?  The 
human  spirit  is  to  seek  its  welfare  as  an  end  of 
its  existence;  but  the  manner  of  the  attainment 
of  that  end,  paradoxically  enough,  is  to  transfer 
the  center  of  its  activities  from  its  own  being  to 
the  heart  of  God  Himself.  One  must  love  him- 
self ;  but  when  he  looks  for  the  means  of  promoting 
his  welfare,  he  discovers  that  it  is  self-forgetful- 
ness  and  mindfulness  of  the  glory  of  God,  of  His 
Kingdom,  and  of  His  other  children.  This  does 
not  constitute  a  contradiction,  even  though  it  be 
a  paradox.  It  is  simply  a  revelation  of  the  mar- 
velous wisdom  of  God  in  His  provision  for  the 
welfare  of  myself  and  my  brother  at  the  same 
time  by  a  single  action  through  an  altruistic  law. 

That  discovery,  whenever  it  comes,  will  pre- 
cipitate a  crisis.  Until  the  hour  of  that  discovery 
it  can  not  be  said  that  the  direct  seeking  of  our 
individual  good  is  a  sin ;  it  is  only  a  mistake.  Now, 
if  one  shall  reject  the  operation  of  this  altruistic 
law,  the  identical  direct  seeking  of  the  good  for 
one 's  self  is  no  longer  a  mistake ;  it  is  a  sin.  But 
if  one  yields  his  self-seeking,  he  will  avoid  the  sin 
and  be  lifted  out  of  his  mistake* 

If  any  one  shall  regard  this  crisis  and  its  so- 
lution as  a  conversion,  we  will  have  no  contro- 
versy. We  point  out  only  that  the  change  is  a 
change  in  the  spiritual  nature,  but  not  of  moral 
character.  There  was  no  condemnation  before; 
there  is  none  after.  It  is  a  change  that  grows 


74     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

out  of  spiritual  enlightenment  and  the  workings 
of  the  already  inwrought  Divine  Spirit.  It  is  not 
a  turning  away  from  sin  to  holiness;  it  is  only 
an  essential  step  in  holiness,  and  the  life  of  God 's 
children  are  full  of  such  normal  crises. 

Our  answer  to  the  whole  question,  then,  is 
somewhat  a  paradox.  In  the  working  of  both  flesh 
and  spirit  there  is  a  pull,  an  impulse  that  leads 
toward  sin,  but  stops  short  of  it  when  the  higher 
nature  recognizes  the  boundaries  where  virtue 
ends  and  sin  begins,  draws  the  line  and  says  that 
the  movement  must  end  at  that  line.  It  is  a  strug- 
gle with  an  impulse  that,  uncontrolled  and  unlim- 
ited, would  end  in  sin,  and  thus  it  is  not  very 
far  wrong  to  call  it  a  struggle  against  sin.  But 
it  ought  ever  to  be  remembered  that  it  is  not  a 
sinful  struggle. 

If  one  would  look  for  a  living  illustration  of 
what  we  have  said,  he  may  find  it  in  the  tempta- 
tions of  Jesus.*  If  struggle  were  sinful,  Jesus, 
as  a  pure  Being,  could  never  have  known  the  pull 
of  temptation.  That  He  did  feel  it  in  proportion 
to  the  wealth  of  His  nature,  the  exaltation  of  His 
mission,  and  the  power  of  His  passion  to  accom- 
plish that  mission,  we  are  ready  to  believe.  The 
point  of  that  temptation  seems  to  be  the  demon- 
stration of  the  truth  of  that  testimony,  which  had 
just  been  given  Him  from  heaven,  that  He  was  the 

*  Of  Jesus  it  is  said:  "The  only  temptation  with  real  power  to  Him  was  a  temp- 
tation to  good — to  inferior  forms  of  good.  It  was  not  the  temptation  to  forsake  the 
righteousness  of  God,  but  to  seek  it  by  other  paths,  less  moral  and  less  patient  paths, 
than  God's  highway  of  the  holy  cross." — (Forsyth:  "Person  and  Place  of  Jesus  Christ." 
803.) 


MORAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NATURE     75 

Son  of  God.  What  was  implied  in  that  testi- 
mony? That  He  had  creative  power.  Then,  turn 
these  stones  into  bread :  for  His  hunger  furnished 
a  real  occasion.  If  He  be  the  Son  of  God,  then 
it  is  very  desirable  that  some  unmistakable  sign 
should  be  given  to  the  people  that  they  might  be- 
lieve it.  Then,  cast  Thyself  down  from  a  pin- 
nacle of  the  temple  and  let  the  people  see  that 
angels  from  heaven  bear  Thee  up  and  no  harm 
comes  to  Thee.  If  He  be  the  Son  of  God,  it  is 
very  necessary  that  all  of  earth's  forces,  evil  as 
well  as  good,  shall  unite  in  the  formation  of  His 
Kingdom.  Then  fall  down  at  the  feet  of  Satan; 
make  some  compromise  with  evil ;  seek  an  alliance 
with  the  powers  of  a  degenerate  world,  and  they 
will  all  join  in  bringing  the  world  to  Thy  feet. 
All  the  objects  presented  in  these  temptations  are 
legitimate.  All  of  them  Jesus  sincerely  desired 
to  encompass,  and  His  desire  was  commensurate 
in  intensity  with  the  passion  of  His  nature.  But 
the  means  in  each  case  was  illegitimate,  and  the 
moral  divergence  of  means  and  end  furnished  to 
Him,  and  the  same  divergence  may  furnish  to 
us,  an  intense  conflict,  a  fierce  temptation. 

We  then  have  to  do  in  normal  human  nature 
with  the  double  impulse — one  toward  sensuous 
gratification,  and  one  toward  spiritual  or  tem- 
peramental exaggeration.  The  flesh  says :  indulg- 
ence without  limit;  the  mind  says:  indulgence  as 
a  means  toward  a  higher  purpose  only.  One  of 
the  elements  of  the  spirit  says :  let  me  develop  re- 


76     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

gardless  of  other  virtues  or  other  persons.  The 
instructed  spirit  says:  development  can  only  be 
in  God.  All  other  growth  is  but  losing  the  way, 
and  consequently  losing  the  goal. 

There  is  not,  then,  in  normal  human  nature  a 
single  bias  unopposed,  but  an  impulse  met  by  a 
higher  faculty,  operating  under  the  guidance  of  a 
higher  law,  and  for  a  more  ultimate  end.*  The 
condition  of  struggle  with  the  flesh  will  end  with 
the  earth-life.  The  conditions  of  spiritual  strug- 
gle are  eternal.  There  are  hints,  which  we  may 
be  in  no  situation  to  analyze  or  criticise,  though 
not  irrational  in  their  suggestion,  that  angels  who 
had  not  the  fleshly  bias  at  all,  yet  fell  while  in  the 
situation  of  a  pure  spiritual  condition. 

If  any  one  shall  say  that  this  discussion  is 
academic  only;  that  there  is  no  individual  adult 
that  is  normal,  none  whose  nature  is  not  damaged 
by  some  sin  of  his  own,  we  will  not  join  issue 
on  the  point.  Its  introduction  was  necessary  to 
show  what  kind  of  a  thing  is  the  human  nature 
which  the  child  inherits. 

To  many  it  seems  that  the  impulse  of  the  flesh 
is  too  strong  for  the  spiritual  nature  to  resist. 
That  if  we  may  not  use  the  word  1 1  bias, ' '  at  least 
that  the  impulse  sinward  has  the  preponderance. 

*Lydston  states  this  truth  in  a  little  different  way  when  he  says:  "It  is  fair  to 
say  that  the  human  being  is  an  animal  primarily  possessing  instinctive  tendencies  to 
crime,  but  who  is  subjected  under  civilized  conditions  to  certain  inhibitory  influences 
that  have  accumulated  through  the  ages,  and  which  prevent  the  average  man  from  be- 
coming vicious  or  criminal.  When  these  inhibitions  or  restraints  are  removed,  criminal 
act  result." — ("Diseases  of  Society,"  27)  He  is  speaking  of  crime,  and  hence  speaks  of 
external  inhibitions;  we  are  analyzing  the  tendency  to  sin,  and  hence  bring  to  view  the 
Internal  inhibitions. 


MOEAL  BIAS  IN  HUMAN  NATURE     77 

Hence,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  individual  ever 
passes  through  his  career  without  giving  way  to 
sin.  Is  sin  therefore  a  necessity  of  our  inherit- 
ance? or  how  shall  we  explain  this  universal  fact? 

We  may  say  that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  given 
to  every  man,  or  offered  to  all,  to  assist  in  with- 
standing the  onslaught  of  impulse.  This  is  ac- 
cepted by  all,  but  it  does  not  clear  up  the  situation. 
Even  regenerate  persons  give  the  same  general 
testimony :  that  they  all  at  some  time  fall  into  sin. 
Is  this,  then,  a  disproof  of  the  divine  ability  to 
keep  one  from  sinning?  Does  this  universal  testi- 
mony establish  a  law  of  necessity?  Has  God  put 
us  under  sin  at  our  birth  and  furnished  us  with 
no  way  of  escape  even  through  Jesus  Christ?  To 
say  that  the  universal  experience  proves  sinful 
inheritance,  is  to  allow  that  the  same  experience 
proves  that  there  is  no  relief  through  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  through  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  is  a 
conclusion  from  which  all  will  draw  back.  Is  it 
not  better  to  seek  an  explanation  of  the  universal 
experience  from  the  nature  of  freedom  and  the 
general  influences  that  pervade  all  society,  even 
the  best-known  Christian  society? 

"It  has  been  concluded  that  regeneration  so 
affects  the  will,  the  affections,  and  the  intelligence 
as  to  establish  in  its  subject  a  preponderant  tend- 
ency toward  God  and  His  Kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness. But  a  right  tendency  is  not  necessarily  one 
of  perfect  and  indefectible  strength.  The  complex 
life  of  the  human  soul  makes  it  possible  that  the 


78     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

heavenly  attraction  should  prevail  over  it,  while 
yet  it  feels  the  drawings  of  the  things  of  sense, 
and  is  in  more  or  less  danger  of  conceding  too 
much  to  that  inferior  drawing."  (Sheldon: 
" System  of  Doctrine,"  459.) 

It  is  only  necessary  to  hold  that  sin  is  not  ne- 
cessitated; that  any  given  experience  may  be  an 
experience  in  holiness,  as  well  as  to  allow  that  in 
the  mysterious  working  of  freedom  it  may  be  an 
experience  in  sin. 

This  discussion,  if  followed  out,  would  lead 
us  too  far  off  from  our  subject.  We  leave  it  with 
the  observation  that  any  explanation  that  will  sat- 
isfy in  the  case  of  the  regenerated  adults  will 
also  clarify  the  case  of  children.  Their  experi- 
ence in  sinning  is  no  whit  more  universal  than  is 
that  of  those  who  have  passed  through  adult  con- 
version. It  is  a  fair  question  for  investigation 
whether,  in  the  cases  of  carefully  trained  children, 
their  record  is  not  better  than  that  of  adult  Chris- 
tians. But  our  position  does  not  demand  the  af- 
firmation of  this,  and  we  leave  it  an  open  question. 
Justly  Professor  Tyler  has  said:  "Appetites  are 
old  and  deep-seated,  rude  and  very  strong.  Man 's 
senses  are  keen.  Old  motives,  like  fear  or  hate, 
are  always  threatening  revolt  against  the  higher 
and  younger  moral  and  religious  ruling  powers. 
...  It  has  been  a  long  and  fearful  struggle. 
Rex  regis  rebellis.  The  king  has  always  been  in 
rebellion  against  the  king.  The  lower  always  ap- 
peals from  and  against  the  higher.  Ape  and  tiger 


die  hard."  ("Man  in  Evolution,"  59.)  This  he 
says  from  the  evolutionist's  point  of  view.  May 
we  not  hope  on  that  assumption  that  the  higher 
nature  may  continually  strengthen,  and  the  lower, 
being  continually  awed  into  obedience,  may  learn 
to  be  more  tractable ! 

The  question  is  often  put  in  the  form,  Is  human 
nature,  unassisted  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  more  in- 
clined to  evil  than  to  good?  In  this  form  the  sub- 
ject is  obscured  rather  than  illuminated.  Man  is 
made  for  fellowship  and  communion  with  God 
through  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  might  as  well  inves- 
tigate the  physical  powers  of  man  by  raising  the 
question,  What  can  he  do  without  an  atmosphere? 
When  communion  with  God  is  rejected  he  is  ab- 
normal, unnatural,  and  the  answer  to  the  question, 
what  he  can  do  in  that  condition,  has  no  signifi- 
cance. The  proper  inquiry  is  concerning  man  as 
God  has  planned  his  nature.  We  then  would  ask, 
Is  man  in  his  natural  condition  of  fellowship  with 
God  more  inclined  to  evil  than  to  good!  The  an- 
swer even  then  must  be :  Man  is  in  a  moral  strug- 
gle with  his  animal  nature,  but  the  issue  is  not 
uncertain  so  long  as  he  maintains  this  living  re- 
lation with  God. 


CHAPTER  V 

HEKEDITY   AND  ENVIRONMENT 

Too  MUCH  and  too  little  have  been  said  about  he- 
redity :  too  much  if  mere  physical  heredity  only  is 
meant;  too  little  if  spiritual  heredity  also  is  con- 
sidered. It  is  one  of  the  unsolved  problems,  and 
agreement  concerning  it  has  not  been  reached. 
Perhaps  it  has  never  been  properly  conceived. 
Some  exalt  it  to  a  supreme  position ;  others  think 
it  may  be  overcome  and  nullified  by  environment. 
Lewes  in  his  "Life  of  Goethe"  says:  "It  is 
profoundly  false  to  say  that  *  character  is  formed 
by  circumstances, '  unless  the  phrase  with  unphilo- 
sophic  equivocation  include  the  whole  complexity 
of  circumstances,  from  creation  downward.  Char- 
acter is  to  circumstances  what  the  organism  is  to 
the  outer  world :  living  in  it,  but  not  specially  de- 
termined by  it.  ...  Every  biologist  knows  that 
circumstance  has  a  modifying  influence;  but  he 
also  knows  th#t  modifications  are  possible  only 
within  certain  limits.  .  .  .  Goethe  truly  says 
that  if  Eaphael  were  to  paint  peasants  at  an  inn, 
he  could  not  help  making  them  look  like  apostles, 
whereas  Teniers  would  make  his  apostles  look  like 
Dutch  boors.  Instead,  therefore,  of  saying  that 

80 


HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT       81 

man  is  the  creature  of  circumstances,  it  would  be 
nearer  the  mark  to  say  that  he  is  the  architect  of 
circumstances.  It  is  character  which  builds  a  ca- 
reer out  of  circumstances. ' '  In  dealing  with  such 
a  surpassing  genius  as  Goethe  we  may  excuse 
Lewes  somewhat  for  putting  the  case  very  strong. 
There  is  something  that  precedes  circumstance, 
but  it  can  hardly  be  character.  And  unless  char- 
acter does  precede  circumstances  it  can  hardly 
be  credited  with  building  anything  out  of  them. 
Ruskin  ("Modern  Painters,"  III,  42)  gives  even 
more  credit  to  heredity,  although,  as  we  shall  see, 
in  a  somewhat  mixed  conception.  "The  great- 
ness or  the  smallness  of  a  man  is  determined  for 
him  at  his  birth,  as  strictly  as  it  is  determined  for 
a  fruit,  whether  it  is  to  be  a  currant  or  an  apricot. 
Education,  favorable  circumstances,  resolution,  in- 
dustry, may  do  much,  in  a  certain  sense  they  may 
do  everything;  that  is  to  say,  they  determine 
whether  the  poor  apricot  shall  fall  in  the  form  of 
a  green  bead,  blighted  by  the  east  wind,  and  be 
trodden  under  foot;  or  whether  it  shall  expand 
into  tender  pride  and  sweet  brightness  of  golden 
velvet. ' '  These  two  sentences  are  hardly  consist- 
ent with  each  other.  The  latter  allows  to  circum- 
stances what  the  former  denies  to  them.  A  great 
man  and  a  small  man  belong  to  the  same  species. 
Birth  has  fixed  it  that  neither  shall  be  of  some 
other  species.  This  granted,  it  is  within  the  power 
of  circumstance  to  modify  the  degree  of  manhood 
which  either  shall  be.  Lacassagne,  a  French  crim- 


82     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

inologist,  has  said,  "The  social  environment  is 
the  culture  medium  of  criminality."  But  society 
not  only  fashions  its  criminals  by  its  social  condi- 
tions; it  also  produces  by  social  conditions  high- 
class  citizens.  The  same  law  works  for  preserva- 
tion in  one  direction,  that  in  the  opposite  works 
for  corruption.  Its  workings  in  the  preservative 
line  we  see  more  clearly,  however,  in  that  form  of 
society  which  we  call  the  family,  because  the 
family  has  its  opportunity  at  that  period  when 
character  is  most  impressible  and  formative.* 
Dr.  Lydston  gives  the  following  very  striking  il- 
lustration of  the  lines  of  destiny  formed  by  en- 
vironment: "Two  boys  were  truants  and  went  to 
a  farmer's  orchard  to  steal  apples.  One  of  the 
boys  was  caught:  the  other  escaped.  The  one 
who  was  caught  was  turned  over  to  the  constable 
and  placed  in  jail,  where  he  was  thrown  among 
criminals  long  enough  to  fall  under  the  influence 
of  evil  associations.  When  released  he  was  much 
worse  than  when  arrested,  and  got  deeper  and 
deeper  into  crime.  The  other  boy,  with  whom 
he  had  gone  to  steal  apples,  remained  in  school, 

*  The  first  form  of  our  Indian  corn  is  a  grass  about  two  feet  high,  "  bearing  at  its 
summit  a  handsome  panicle  of  male  flowers,  and  on  the  culm  below  one  or  two  fertile 
spikes  three  inches  long  and  half  an  inch  in  diameter,  having  the  seeds  arranged  around 
the  elongated  rachis.  .  .  .  This  represented  all  that  nature  (heredity)  could  do. 
The  vast  cornfields  of  the  West,  the  stalks  fifteen  feet  in  height,  loaded  with  three  or 
four  ears,  each  nearly  a  foot  in  length  and  two  or  three  inches  in  diameter,  represent  what 
nurture  (environment)  has  done." — (Ward:  "Applied  Sociology,"  126.) 

The  above  is  an  example  of  improvement  through  the  power  of  environment.  The 
same  author  gives  an  illustration  also  of  the  degeneration  that  may  be  produced  by 
environment.  He  tells  of  a  grass  which  he  found  growing  near  Washington,  D.  C., 
pauperized  but  still  very  green,  and  to  his  astonishment,  it  was  nothing  else  than  de- 
generated wheat.  It  had  arrived  at  its  present  condition  by  having  lost  the  care  which 
man  gives  to  it. 


HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT       83 

was  looked  upon  as  respectable,  acquired  an  edu- 
cation, became  a  lawyer,  and  finally  a  judge. 
Twenty-five  years  after  the  apple-stealing  episode 
the  boy  who  ran  away  and  escaped  punishment 
was  the  judge  who  sentenced  to  death  for  murder 
the  boy  who  had  been  caught  and  whose  punish- 
ment had  started  him  in  a  career  of  crime." 
(" Diseases  of  Society,"  95.) 

A  prominent  preacher  in  Chicago  said  a  few 
days  ago,  "We  have  handed  down  to  us  the  ambi- 
tions and  appetites,  talents  and  taints,  virtues  and 
vices  of  our  ancestors,  just  as  we  get  from  them 
our  forms  and  features,  our  manners  and  voices." 
This  is  probably  true,  but  possibly  not  by  the 
identically  same  heredity.  The  heredity  of  the 
flesh  is  somewhat  differently  conditioned  from  the 
heredity  of  mind.  The  form  and  feature  came  to 
us  in  the  fleshly  birth,  and  no  matter  what  hap- 
pens to  us  afterwards,  they  can  not  be  wholly 
eradicated.  But  the  virtues  and  vices  of  our  an- 
cestors will  have  little  influence  upon  us  unless  we 
remain  with  them  during  those  years  when  the 
spirit  is  coming  to  its  birth.  Physical  heredity  is 
about  all  that  is  given  to  us  at  birth.  That  which 
is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh.  There  is  no  sort  of 
dispute  concerning  the  power  of  heredity  in  the 
nervous  system.  This  accounts  for  all  that  is  cer- 
tainly proven  concerning  it.  The  moral  traits,  the 
acquired  traits,  parents  are  not  able  to  hand  down 
to  their  children  unless  they  also  have  their  train- 
ing. But  training  is  usually  credited  to  environ- 


84     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

merit.  Many  things  are  credited  to  heredity  incor- 
rectly, unless  some  broader  than  ordinary  view  is 
given  to  it.  It  is  sometimes  said,  Some  men  were 
born  Republicans  or  Presbyterians,  and  no  earthly 
power  can  change  their  tendencies.  On  the  con- 
trary, this  must  be  credited  to  training,  and  not 
to  birth.  If  these  same  persons  had  been  removed 
to  the  center  of  Africa  at  birth,  they  never  would 
have  had  a  notion  of  Republicanism  or  Presbyte- 
rianism. 

But  we  raise  the  question,  Is  this  intimate 
training  environment,  or  on  the  level  with  other 
influences  known  as  environment?  Would  it  not 
be  a  better  conception  to  think  of  soul-formation 
as  the  spiritual  birth,  and  as  being  the  spiritual 
heritage  of  the  child  from  his  parents!  This 
would  give  to  heredity  all  that  is  claimed  for  it, 
but  would  hold  it  to  certain  conditions,  the  ab- 
sence of  which  would  nullify  it.  When  the  eyes  of 
the  child  look  up  into  the  eyes  of  the  mother, 
which  answer  back  with  her  own  soul  illumination ; 
when  she  presses  him  close  up  to  her  bosom,  and 
he  feels  in  the  physical  heart-beat  her  spiritual 
pulsations  of  love  for  him;  when  prayer  and  so- 
licitude ever  create  about  him  an  atmosphere  of 
spiritual  dynamic  that  gives  him  courage  and 
guidance,  there  is  something  more  vital  being  com- 
municated to  him  than  can  ever  come  from  a  dull 
and  passive  environment,  to  which  he  may  or  may 
not  decide  to  respond.  About  the  first  recognition 
that  a  child  has  is  the  recognition  of  personality. 


HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT       85 

' '  As  early  as  the  second  month  it  distinguishes  its 
mother's  or  nurse's  touch  in  the  dark.  It  learns 
the  characteristic  methods  of  holding,  taking  up, 
patting,  and  adapts  itself  to  these  personal  varia- 
tions. It  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  the  child's 
behavior  toward  things  which  are  not  persons." 
(Baldwin:  "Mental  Development  in  the  Child," 
335.)  "When  the  child  takes  the  next  step  from 
recognition  of  personality  to  the  development  of 
his  own  personality,  he  does  so  through  the  func- 
tion of  imitation.  When  the  organism  is  ripe  for 
the  enlargement  of  its  active  range  by  new  ac- 
commodations, then  he  begins  to  be  dissatisfied 
with  .  .  .  contemplation,  and  starts  on  his  ca- 
reer of  imitation.  And  of  course  he  imitates 
persons."  Thus  the  soul  of  the  child  and  the 
soul  of  the  parent  are  in  vital  communication  to 
a  degree  not  existing  between  him  and  things. 
It  is  this  ascertained  law  of  vital  relation  between 
parent  and  child  that  demands  some  intenser  name 
than  the  term  environment  conveys,  and  suggests 
the  propriety  of  calling  it  heredity.  No  physical 
communication  was  ever  more  vital  to  him,  even 
when  he  formed  a  part  of  the  physical  organism  of 
the  mother,  than  the  spiritual  tides  that  now  flow 
through  him  from  the  ardent  spiritual  nature  of 
father  or  mother.  Much  attention  has  been  given 
to  pre-natal  impressions — perhaps  not  too  much, 
if  we  are  thinking  of  the  nervous  system  alone. 
But  the  spirit  of  the  mother  has  its  supreme  op- 
portunity in  the  post-natal  life,  when  the  child  has 


86     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

come  to  those  human  conditions  where  he  may  re- 
ceive spiritual  influences  through  channels  of 
spirit,  and  not  through  mere  blood  arteries.  Dr. 
Duvall,  of  Ohio  Wesleyan  University,  allows  the 
statement  that  the  child  grows  up  in  the  matrix 
of  the  home-life  for  the  first  nine  years  of  his 
life  as  he  grew  in  the  matrix  of  his  mother's  body 
for  the  first  nine  months.  The  higher  nature  is 
spiritual ;  its  period  of  gestation  is  the  years  when 
parental  influences  enfold  it;  streams  of  habit 
flow  into  it;  bands  of  power  are  bound  round  it, 
directing  its  growth  and  controlling  the  spiritual 
nutriment  that  is  built  into  its  character.  Let  us 
take  a  single  example  of  the  invincible  power  of 
the  parent,  the  law  of  Imitation.  Imitation  in  a 
child  is  not  volitional.  He  can  not  help  imitating. 
His  nature  acts  that  way  independently  of  choice. 
Yet  every  action  performed  through  imitation 
drops  some  reflex  back  into  his  self -life.  His  self 
is  but  the  product  of  his  past  actions.  "What  we 
do  is  a  function  of  what  we  think;  what  we  think 
is  a  function  of  what  we  have  done."  (Baldwin.) 
We  thus  can  control  the  action  of  the  child,  and 
hence  the  character  of  the  child  through  the  ac- 
tions we  live  before  him,  and  the  authority  we 
have  over  him.  Thus  these  years  of  childhood  up 
to  adolescence  are  much  more  important  for  char- 
acter than  anything  known  that  can  come  to  him 
in  his  pre-natal  life.  If  this  truth  could  be  ade- 
quately appreciated  by  parents,  they  would  not, 
as  is  now  frequently  done,  allow  the  life  of  the 


HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT   87 

street  to  beget  the  character  of  their  child,  to 
whom  they  have  given  only  a  physical  structure. 
If  this  be  an  allowable  conception  of  spiritual 
heredity,  then  a  child  is  greatly  wronged  whose 
parents  do  not  give  themselves  vitally  to  him. 
They  must  allow  the  arteries  of  spiritual  life  to 
pump  into  his  forming  being  that  character  which 
he  has  a  right  to  inherit  from  them.  The  child 
that  is  brought  up  by  nurses  instead  of  by  a 
mother  is  the  spiritual  offspring  of  the  nurse 
rather  than  of  the  mother,  and  will  be  more  in- 
debted for  character  to  the  nurse  than  to  its  own 
mother.  Nothing  saves  such  a  transaction  from 
being  a  tragedy  except  the  not  unprecedented  fact 
that  the  character  of  the  nurse  is  often  more  noble 
than  that  of  the  mother.  That  mother  is  mistaken 
who  assumes  that  in  giving  her  child  fleshly  birth 
she  has  given  him  a  spiritual  being,  which  now 
she  may  have  cultivated  by  a  hired  servant.  Noth- 
ing but  daily,  living  contact  with  herself  will  im- 
part her  own  self  to  him.  If  separation  from  the 
parents  is  complete,  the  spiritual  heritage  from 
them  will  be  insignificant.  A  spiritual  heritage 
for  our  children  can  not  be  purchased  with  money ; 
it  must  be  drawn  from  us  by  living  processes.  A 
child  is  not  indebted  to  his  mother's  milk  so  much 
for  his  character  as  he  is  to  his  mother's  hope, 
courage,  faith.  "Children  have  certain  inalien- 
able rights  which  fatherhood  and  motherhood 
must  recognize.  They  have  a  right  to  stand  first 
in  the  affections,  the  interest,  and  the  endeavor 


of  the  parents;  they  have  a  right  to  all  that  is 
good  and  noble  and  encouraging  in  the  parent 
life;  they  have  a  right  to  find  their  home  the 
most  pleasant  spot  on  earth;  they  have  a  right 
to  all  the  means  of  refinement  that  lie  within 
the  limits  of  the  parents'  purse;  they  have  a 
right  to  proper  food  and  clothing  for  the  body, 
but  equally  as  great  right  to  mental  and  moral 
nourishment,  that  neither  body  nor  soul  may  be 
atrophied;  they  have  the  right  to  have  the  laws 
of  their  development,  both  physiological  and  psy- 
chological, well  understood  and  held  sacred  by 
those  in  authority  over  them;  they  have  a  right 
to  have  their  better  nature  so  strengthened  that 
when  the  seeds  of  evil  speech  and  evil  action  fall 
upon  their  life  they  will  take  no  abiding  root,  be- 
cause the  soil  is  already  occupied  with  the  fruits 
of  better  hopes.  > '  (MacDonald :  ' '  Child  Study, ' ' 
1343.) 

"Nor  nurse,  nor  parent  dear  can  know 
The  way  these  infant  feet  must  go ; 
And  yet  a  nation's  help  and  hope 
Are  sealed  within  that  horoscope." 


CHAPTEE  VI 

HEEEDITAEY  SIN  IS  DISPROVED  BY  RECOVERY 

IP  there  is  one  thing  we  know  about  sin,  it  is  that 
it  is  a  waste  of  human  resources.  Its  direct  effect 
is  to  poison,  tear  down,  dissipate,  disintegrate,  de- 
stroy the  elements,  powers,  faculties,  even  the  very 
tissue  of  human  nature.  Its  power  in  a  single  life- 
time to  change  a  human  being  into  a  worse  than 
beast  is  marvelous.  The  body  becomes  weak  and 
refuses  its  functions,  becomes  incapable  of  its 
normal  actions.  The  mind  breaks  down  until  it 
is  dethroned,  and  the  gross  sinner  must  be  directed 
and  provided  for  by  organized  society.  The  soul 
loses  every  semblance  to  divinity,  or  even  to  nor- 
mal humanity. 

Now,  if  sin  were  hereditary,  one  generation 
would  commence  at  the  low  level  at  which  the  last 
generation  had  arrived.  A  people  whose  habits 
were  gross,  whose  practices  were  lawless,  whose 
minds  were  vicious  and  impure,  whose  spiritual 
life  was  vile  and  unchaste,  under  the  law  of  sinful 
development  from  generation  to  generation  would 
be  dragged  down  so  low  in  fifty  generations  that 
it  would  take  fifty  generations  to  uplift  them  to 
the  level  of  those  who  had  lived  under  a  pure  gos- 

89 


90     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

pel  and  obeyed  the  divine  law.     Is  this  true  to 
the  facts  as  known  in  the  world? 

Physical  degeneracy  is  a  fact  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  overlook.  People  who  were  imper- 
fectly nourished,  or  whose  physical  habits  brought 
physical  weakness  and  loss,  have  approached  the 
vanishing  point,  and  many  have  passed  it.  Luxury 
and  other  physical  vices  have  been  the  cause  of 
different  peoples'  passing  away  from  history. 
But  this  can  not  be  said  of  moral  degeneracy.  If  a 
people  have  so  lived  as  to  keep  up  the  physical  re- 
sources, they  show  an  ability  to  recover  from  the 
spiritual  degeneracy  of  a  hundred  generations  in 
one  generation.  The  spiritual  life  of  the  Chinese 
must  be  pronounced  as  very  unclean  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Christianity.  So  the  Japanese. 
And  yet  out  of  the  heritage  of  uncounted  genera- 
tions we  find  men  coming  in  a  single  generation 
to  take  first  rank  in  our  leading  American  univer- 
sities, and,  having  accepted  the  faith  of  Jesus,  to 
rank  among  the  most  faithful  and  exemplary  mem- 
bers of  His  Kingdom  in  our  day.  We  may  take 
even  a  more  extreme  example  than  those  named. 
We  can  go  into  the  heart  of  Africa  and  select  a 
person  for  illustration.  The  life  of  the  people 
of  Africa  has  been  astonishingly  sinful,  beyond 
all  possibility  of  civilized  people  who  have  not 
witnessed  it  to  conceive.  It  has  never  been  re- 
lieved by  a  great  moral  or  religious  teacher. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Christianity,  and  from 


HEREDITARY  SIN  IS  DISPROVEN     91 

that  of  any  ethnic  religion  of  history,  the  life  of 
the  people  of  Africa  has  been  a  continual  stream 
of  the  most  revolting  and  wasteful  sin.  The  only 
thing  that  is  saved  from  human  wreckage  is  the 
physical  structure,  which  is  found  in  most  perfect 
form  and  strength. 

And  yet  Bishop  William  Taylor  brings  from 
Africa  a  little  child,  whose  heritage  is  this  be- 
sotted life  of  her  people  for  unknown  centuries; 
places  her  in  school;  friends  gather  about  her; 
by  means  gained  through  nursing  and  other  em- 
ployment she  pushes  her  way  through  college, 
graduates  in  1909  from  the  University  of  South- 
ern California  as  the  equal  of  any  in  her  class,  and 
takes  her  master's  degree  from  the  same  institu- 
tion the  following  year,  and  then  seeks  special 
preparation  in  a  missionary  training  school  to  go 
back  as  a  missionary  to  her  own  people.  What  is 
the  meaning  of  this?  Does  it  mean  that  sin  is 
not  a  very  evil  thing?  Does  it  mean  that  there 
is  very  little  difference  between  those  who  have 
known  its  power  and  those  who  have  lived  above 
it?  Or  does  it  not  rather  prove,  beyond  a  per- 
adventure,  that  God  allows  all  human  beings  to 
start  on  the  same  level  morally?  It  was  this  same 
Bishop  William  Taylor  who  said,  ' '  There  are  no 
heathen  children  in  the  world."  God  is  so  just 
and  equable  in  His  ways  with  men  that,  so  far 
as  morals  are  concerned,  each  child  is  really  in 
spiritual  nature  at  the  top.  Every  fall  is  a  per- 


92     MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

sonal  fall.  Children  may  become  heathen;  they 
are  not  born  heathen.  If  the  facts  of  life  do  not 
prove  this,  I  am  unable  to  interpret  them.* 

This  question  will  be  complicated  somewhat, 
without  doubt,  by  the  question  of  environment. 
It  will  not  be  true  that  those  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity who  remain  in  their  native  country,  sur- 
rounded by  their  native  people,  can  in  a  single 
generation  be  lifted  out  of  their  heritage.  They 
will  have  the  ways  of  thinking  and  the  national 
habits,  the  prejudices  and  the  moral  practices  of 
their  people.  They  can  not  be  lifted  entirely  out 
of  environmental  consequences  until  their  whole 
race  has  been  lifted  out  of  them.  That  is  another 
problem.  The  point,  however,  is:  lift  them  out 
of  their  environment  at  birth;  give  them  Chris- 
tian teaching  and  Christian  training,  and  they 
will  take  their  place  immediately  among  those  of 


*  Evolutionary  writers  speak  as  if  the  Fall  were  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  E.  G.  Henderson  ("God  and  Man  in  the  Light  of  To-day")  says:  "Man  had 
reached  a  higher  stage  of  development.  To  him  for  the  first  time  right  and  wrong  had 
meaning.  To  him  for  the  first  time  belonged  freedom  of  choice.  To  him  for  the  first 
time  was  presented  the  upward  and  the  downward  course.  But  having  reached  the 
new  stage  in  his  development,  he  ought  to  have  taken  the  upward  course,  he  ought  to  have 
chosen  the  good.  He  actually  took  the  downward  course.  He  chose  evil  instead  of  good. 
He  turned  aside  from  the  path  of  progress.  He  fell  into  sin."  (p.  113.)  A  moment's  re- 
flection will  show  that  such  a  description  of  a  race-act  is  and  can  be  only  a  fiction.  The 
above  language  is  highly  intelligible  as  the  description  of  the  act  of  an  individual;  but 
an  individual  in  the  evolutionary  sense  does  not  thus  come  "for  the  first  time,"  etc.  It 
is  a  race  that  thus  emerges  from  the  moral  darkness  of  animal  life  into  the  moral  light 
of  a  human  life.  The  race  could  not  fall  into  sin  by  an  act.  Only  such  a  fall  is  pos- 
sible in  an  individual.  Such  an  account  of  the  fall  from  an  evolutionary  point  of  view 
is  reasonable  only  if  we  assume  that  at  some  time  the  race  was  an  individual,  as  Gen- 
esis pictures.  But  that  is  a  somewhat  difficult  assumption  to  fit  into  an  evolutionary  proc- 
ess. An  attempt  to  think  it  through  will  result,  we  verily  believe,  in  a  rejection  of  the 
Fall  as  a  race  experience,  and  will  leave  the  sinful  condition  of  the  race  as  the  result  of 
individual  sins. 


HEREDITARY  SIN  IS  DISPBOVEN     93 

another  race  whose  ancestors  have  had  the  gospel 
for  fifty  generations.  Moreover,  while  the  indi- 
vidual can  not  be  lifted  out  of  his  social  and  men- 
tal habits  and  practices  in  a  generation,  while 
abiding  among  those  who  are  teaching  him  by 
example  the  old  ways,  yet,  marvelous  as  it  may 
seem,  Christian  Chinamen  exhibit  individual  vir- 
tues of  the  most  sacrificing  type  as  a  result  of 
the  acceptance  of  Christian  doctrine.  Chinamen 
died  in  the  Boxer  uprising  with  all  the  abandon 
to  their  Savior  ever  exhibited  by  the  choicest 
spirits  of  any  race. 

In  modern  times  there  is  no  story  exceeding 
that  of  the  faithfulness  of  Susi  and  Chuma,  two 
native  Africans,  the  attendants  of  Dr.  David  Liv- 
ingstone, who  took  charge  of  his  remains  after  his 
death  in  the  heart  of  Africa.  The  care  and  intelli- 
gence used  in  embalming  his  body,  the  resources 
shown  in  disguising  it  for  conveyance  through 
hostile  tribes,  the  resistance  even  to  the  pressure 
of  English  officials  to  bury  it  on  the  way,  the  per- 
sistence when  sick  themselves  through  nine  long 
months  against  obstacles  and  difficulties  of  every 
conceivable  description,  until  at  last  they  gave  it 
into  the  care  of  relatives  and  friends  in  London, 
and  all  without  promise  of  reward,  reads  like  a 
romance  of  loyal-heartedness  and  is  almost  un- 
equaled  in  literature.  Yet  these  men,  whose  virtue 
shines  out  so  suddenly  and  so  brilliantly,  had  as 
their  progenitors  for  thousands  of  years  native 


94     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

Africans  as  degraded  as  sensuality  can  bring  peo- 
ple and  as  deprived  of  moral  light  as  Africa's  long 
night  is  known  to  have  been. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  human  stock  is  not  ex- 
hausted by  the  heredity  of  sin ;  and  the  only  pos- 
sible explanation  for  it  is  that  there  is  no  heredity 
of  sin.  Each  child  is  directly  God's  child.  Each 
child  is  provided  with  a  human  outfit  morally,  no 
matter  how  his  parents  may  have  wasted  theirs. 

Perhaps  Lyman  Abbott  goes  too  far  on  the 
positive  side  of  inheritance,  but  certainly  not  too 
far  on  the  negative,  when  he  says :  * '  No  man  ever 
inherited  sin.  There  is  not  any  original  sin.  Men 
inherit  appetites  and  passions,  they  inherit  temp- 
tations, they  inherit  weaknesses  and  frailties  and 
infirmities,  but  they  do  not  inherit  sin,  and  they 
do  not  inherit  virtue.  Virtue  can  not  be  handed 
down  from  father  to  son.  .  .  .  Weaknesses  may 
be  handed  down  so  that  it  will  be  easier  for  your 
son  to  fall  into  sin,  but  virtue  is  victory  by  the  in- 
dividual himself,  and  the  victory  can  not  be  won 
by  another  and  the  defeat  can  not  be  suffered  by 
another.  Men  are  neither  born  sinners  nor 
saints."  ("Modern  Sermons,"  I,  6.) 

And  yet  this  does  not  deny  the  law  of  heredity, 
in  which  I  most  thoroughly  believe.  But  it  does 
announce  that  morals  are  not  transferable  from 
one  generation  to  another.  This  generation 
through  heredity  is  no  worse  in  moral  equipment 
because  its  ancestors  were  wicked ;  that  one  is  no 
better  because  its  ancestors  were  virtuous.  He- 


HEEEDITAEY  SIN  IS  DISPEOVEN     95 

redity  is  a  thing  of  the  flesh,  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, and  hence  has  immense  importance.  God  has 
given  our  children  to  us  for  fleshly  weal  or  woe. 
We  have  much  to  say  as  to  what  they  shall  be; 
but  we  can  not  directly  consign  them  to  guiltiness 
and  spiritual  poverty  by  our  sins,  through  the  law 
of  heredity.* 

*  "The  purifying  grace  of  God  in  human  nature  does  weaken  the  power  of  sin, 
and  to  the  degree  that  it  loses  its  dominion  over  the  flesh,  (1)  and  its  enticing  influence 
over  the  spirit,  to  that  extent  is  its  transmissive  power  weakened."  (2)  (Cooke:  In- 
carnation and  Recent  Criticism,  151.) 

(1)  "Power  of  sin  in  the  flesh,"  is  here  manifestly  intended  to  be  understood. 
This  would  be  probably  true  if  there  were  any  sin  in  the  flesh,  which  there  is  not.     Sin 
is  not  an  attribute  of  a  material  substance.     There  may  be  disease  in  the  flesh.     Whether 
the  grace  of  God  weakens  the  power  of  disease,  we  will  not  discuss,  because  it  is  not 
relevant  at  this  point.     We  can  readily  believe  that  it  would,  but  it  is  simply  a  question 
of  fact  to  be  established. 

That  Paul  speaks  repeatedly  of  "sin  in  the  flesh"  we  are  aware,  but  even  a  slight 
examination  will  show  that  he  is  not  thinking  of  the  substance,  flesh;  but  is  using  the 
word  *arx  as  a  figure  of  speech  for  a  nature  or  person,  who  is  giving  himself  to  the  do- 
minion of  fleshly  impulses. 

(2)  This  is  an  easy  and  at  first  view  apparently  pleasant  assumption;  one  that 
has  been  much  indulged  in  in  recent  years  by  different  writers.     But  first,  when  heredity 
and  environment  are  properly  discriminated,  the  experience  of  the  race  furnishes  no  con- 
firmation of  it.     It  is  now  rejected  by  scientists,  although  the  whole  subject  can  hardly 
be  said  as  yet  to  be  worked  out  definitely.     In  the  second  place,  if  it  were  true,  such 
a  law  of  heredity  would  produce  a  condition  of  hopelessness  for  mankind.     If  moral 
qualities  are  transmissible  by  heredity,  then  the  bad  as  well  as  the  good  would  have 
their  cumulative  consequences.     Unfortunately  the  history  of  the  race  has  been  so  pre- 
ponderantly evil  that  such  a  law  would  long  ago  have  brought  us  below  salvabilit^. 
However  such  a  law  would  be  on  its  upward  side,   the  downward  side  must  go  with  it, 
and  would  have  placed  mankind  in  a  hopeless  condition.     There  are  few  things  from 
which  we  have  escaped  for  which  we  should  be  more  thankful  than  that  the  law  of  her- 
edity does  not  include  in  its  operation  the  transmission  of  moral  qualities  from  gener- 
ation to  generation. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ACQUIRED  TKAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE  BY  HEREDITY 

IN  seeking  for  a  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  he- 
reditary sin  that  would  fairly  represent  the  gen- 
eral doctrine  that  has  been  held  through  the  cen- 
turies, we  have  found  a  considerable  variation  of 
opinion.  But  Anselm  and  Augustin  will  agree 
in  the  following  summary :  God  created  human  na- 
ture without  sin.  If  Adam  had  not  sinned,  his 
posterity  would  have  been  without  sin.  But  by 
sinning  he  corrupted  human  nature  (not  merely 
himself  as  an  individual,  but  human  nature,  of 
which  he  was  the  only  representative),  and  his 
posterity  now  partake  of  the  modified  human  na- 
ture which  he  by  sinning  acquired.  His  acquired, 
not  created  or,  as  we  would  now  say,  inborn  trait, 
is  transmitted  to  posterity  through  heredity. 
Both  these  teachers  make  a  distinction  between 
human  nature  and  the  individual.  They  assume 
that  Adam  was  both  in  himself;  that  he  sinned, 
not  as  an  individual,  but  as  the  embodiment  of 
human  nature.  In  this  they  will  hardly  be  justi- 
fied. The  accident  of  being  the  first  individual 
gave  Adam  no  more  power  to  modify  human  na- 
ture than  any  other  ancestor,  unless  we  assume 
in  the  start  that  heredity  transmits  acquired 

96 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE         97 

traits.  Adam  was  as  much  an  individual  as  any 
other  that  lives  after  him.  The  law  of  heredity 
will  have  no  different  effect  in  his  case  than  if 
he  had  not  been  humanity's  only  representative. 
We  dare  to  apply  the  law  of  heredity  to  him  as 
exactly  and  as  comprehensively  as  we  would  if 
there  had  been  a  thousand  progenitors  instead  of 
one.  It  was  no  different  law  because  he  was  the 
first  man  than  if  he  had  been  in  the  second  or  the 
tenth  generation.  If  the  law  of  heredity  does  not 
transmit  the  acquired  trait  now,  it  would  not  do 
so  then.  This  doctrine,  then,  will  be  much  affected 
by  our  conclusion  concerning  this  matter  of  fact. 
It  has  never  been  contended  that  heredity  can 
operate  to  the  restoration  of  humanity  to  his  orig- 
inal righteousness;  yet  it  is  difficult  to  see  why 
the  law  should  not  operate  both  ways  if  it  oper- 
ates at  all.* 


*The  opposite  of  our  contention  is  widely  held,  and  even  taught  by  some  writers 
appealing  to  public  influence.  John  B.  Robins  says: 

"We  maintain  that  the  best  families  religiously  transmit  better  qualities  to  their 
children  than  irreligious  families;  religious  communities  more  than  irreligious  communi- 
ties; and  a  religious  nation  more  spiritual  worth  to  its  citizens  than  irreligious  nations. 
These  are  some  of  the  practical  results  of  heredity." — (The  Family,  129,  cp.  137.) 

That  he  announces  practical  sequences  in  the  above  statement  is  too  apparent 
to  need  iteration,  but  that  heredity  is  the  law  that  accounts  for  it  is  a  too  swift  and  too 
unscientific  conclusion  to  announce.  The  cases  mentioned  cover  heredity  and  envi- 
ronment working  together,  which  produce  the  results.  But  scientific  observation  is 
against  the  conclusion  that  heredity  alone  will  account  for  the  transmission  of  religious 
qualities. 

His  Biblical  illustrations  are  not  much,  if  any,  better  than  his  scientific  foundations. 
He  refers  to  the  persistence  of  race  qualities  in  the  Jews.  These  qualities,  however, 
persist  only  while  they  remain  under  the  peculiar  Jewish  environment  and  training. 
Many  Jews  have  left  their  race  connections,  have  married  with  Gentiles,  and  given 
up  their  religious  culture.  Does  any  one  presume  it  to  be  possible  to  trace  the  blood 
stream  of  Jewish  parentage  out  into  the  Gentile  peoples?  The  illustration  proves  that 
as  long  as  you  maintain  the  Jewish  environment,  Jewish  types  persist;  but  heredity  has 
no  power  to  perpetuate  them  as  soon  as  this  environment  is  abandoned. 

7 


08     MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

Saleeby  says,  in  his  very  recent  (1909)  work  on 
''Parenthood  and  Eace  Culture:"  "  'Heredity,' 
by  Professor  J.  A.  Thomson,  is  the  most  recent 
and  most  valuable  (work)  for  general  purposes 
of  all  books  on  the  subject  of  heredity.  No  lay- 
man should  express  opinions  on  heredity  or  eugen- 
ics until  he  has  read  it,  for  it  is  extremely  im- 
probable that  they  will  be  valuable."  We  shall 
agree  that  this  is  a  subject  which  must  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  testimony  of  experts.  We  need  not 
transfer  Professor  Thomson's  extended  argu- 
ment. The  subject  has  been  surrounded  with  va- 
rious misunderstandings.  These  he  undertakes  to 
clear  away.  Having  done  so,  he  lends  his  author- 
ity unquestionably  to  the  side  that  acquired  traits 
are  not  transmissible  by  heredity.  We  permit  our- 
selves the  following  extract  which  he  quotes  from 
Thomas  Fuller,  "Scripture  Observations,"  No. 
VIII.  It  puts  our  question  in  a  vivid  form: 

"Lord,  I  find  the  genealogy  of  my  Savior 
strangely  checkered  with  four  remarkable  changes 
in  four  immediate  generations. 

* '  1.  Boboam  begat  Abia ;  that  is,  a  bad  father 
begat  a  bad  son. 

"2.  Abia  begat  Asa;  that  is,  a  bad  father,  a 
good  son. 

' '  3.  Asa  begat  Josaphat ;  that  is,  a  good  father, 
a  good  son. 

' '  4.  Josaphat  begat  Joram ;  that  is,  a  good  fa- 
ther, a  bad  son. 

' '  I  see,  Lord,  from  hence  that  my  father's  piety 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE        99 

can  not  be  entailed ;  that  is  bad  news  for  me.  But 
I  see  also  that  actual  impiety  is  not  always  he- 
reditary; that  is  good  news  for  my  son." 

The  idea  that  acquired  qualities  are  transmit- 
ted to  succeeding  generations  lends  itself  readily 
to  the  imagination  and  passes  from  one  speaker 
to  another  to  adorn  many  a  theory.  It  has  be- 
come very  current  in  connection  with  popular  con- 
ceptions of  evolutionary  theories  to  account  for 
the  mutations  of  species  in  successive  generations. 
It  has  been  oft  repeated  as  a  self-evident  truth 
that  "the  giraffe  has  attained  its  long  neck  by 
stretching  it  for  many  generations;  swimming 
birds  have  got  webbed  feet  because  they  stretched 
their  toes  in  the  water ;  wading  birds  have  got  long 
legs  because  they  stretched  them;  the  mole  has 
very  small  eyes  because  it  has  ceased  to  use  them ; 
the  whalebone  whale  has  no  functional  teeth  be- 
cause it  has  acquired  the  habit  of  swallowing  its 
food  without  mastication."  This  sounds  much 
like  evolution,  and  evolution  is  a  victorious  theory ; 
therefore  this  must  be  taken  for  granted.  Yet 
it  is  not  believed  that  the  long  neck  of  the  giraffe 
is  due  to  the  stretching;  but  rather  that  the 
stretching  is  due  to  the  long  neck.  That  is,  a  new 
species  of  animals  had  a  start  in  the  leaf-eating 
direction  by  the  modification  of  an  animal  born 
with  a  neck  longer  than  usual,  from  some  cause 
to  us  untraceable— a  cause  certainly  not  traceable 
to  the  acquirement  of  its  ancestor.  The  start  was 
not  due  to  environment,  but  to  the  selection  of  ger- 


100   MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

minal  variation  in  heredity,  which  variation,  how- 
ever, fits  into  the  environment,  or  the  animal  mani- 
festing it  would  perish  and  the  tendency  proceed 
no  farther. 

Mutilations,  such  as  dehorning  cattle,  cutting 
off  dogs'  tails,  binding  the  feet  of  Chinese  girls, 
circumcision,  ear  and  nose-boring  among  savages, 
continued  many  generations,  have  had  no  influ- 
ence upon  offspring.  It  is  conceded  that  any 
modification  that  does  not  affect  the  germ  cells 
has  no  tendency  to  influence  children. 

The  popular  belief  that  moral  qualities  are 
hereditary  is  due  to  the  fact  largely  that  heredity 
and  environment  are  not  often  separated.  These 
two  influences  combined  are  usually  able  to  repro- 
duce the  moral  character  of  the  parents.  It  is  often 
believed  that  children  of  drunken  parents  are  pre- 
disposed toward  inebriety.  This  is  a  case  rather 
different  from  the  transmission  of  moral  traits. 
The  popular  belief  is  probably  not  well  substan- 
tiated, and  other  factors  than  acquired  traits  are 
involved.  "  Intemperate  habits  of  parents  may 
be  the  expression  of  an  inherited  psychopathic 
disposition,  and  it  is  this  which  is  transmitted  to 
the  offspring."  Children  of  drunken  parents 
grow  up  in  a  drunkard 's  home ;  often  are  fed  on 
alcoholic  drinks  from  infancy.  Moreover,  there 
are  facts  of  heredity  that  make  credible  the  idea 
that  a  toxin  or  anti-toxin  in  the  blood  of  the  father 
may  have  its  effects  upon  the  child.  Alcohol  has 
an  effect  upon  the  whole  nervous  constitution  that 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE       101 

might  easily  be  transmitted.  In  this  case  it  is 
not  the  moral  quality  of  the  act  of  drunkenness 
that  is  transmitted,  but  the  physical  effect  of  alco- 
hol, producing  degeneracy  of  the  nervous  system, 
showing  itself  in  some  physical  weakness  in  the 
child.  But  even  this  is  still  in  the  region  of  con- 
troverted theory,  awaiting  confirmation.  "Most 
of  the  babies  born  in  the  slums  are  splendid  little 
specimens  of  humanity — so  far  as  physique  is  con- 
cerned— bearing  no  marks  of  the  degeneration  of 
their  parents.  In  a  word,  heredity  works — the 
racial  poisons  apart — so  that  each  generation  gets 
a  fresh  start.  If  there  be  no  process  of  selection, 
each  new  generation  begins  where  its  predecessor 
began  and  is  as  a  whole  neither  worse  nor  better, 
whether  physically  or  psychically."  (Saleeby, 
22.)  The  famous  Jukes  family  of  New  York  State 
has  so  often  been  quoted  that  it  is  well  wrought 
into  the  belief  of  people  that  bad  parents  have 
bad  children  through  the  power  of  heredity.  In 
this  case,  however,  there  was  first  of  all  a  de- 
generate physical  heritage  producing  its  inevi- 
table crop  of  insane  and  degenerate  criminals. 
Concerning  this  physical  inheritance  there  is  no 
dispute ;  but  this  case  in  no  way  substantiates  the 
claim  that  wicked  parents  have  wicked  children 
through  the  power  of  inborn  moral  inheritance 
What  children  of  this  family  escaped  a  physical 
degeneracy  were  kept  in  a  corrupt  environment, 
which  insured  the  moral  reproduction  of  the  par- 
ents. The  law  of  moral  heritage  can  only  be 


102    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

shown  in  those  cases  where  no  physical  deformity 
is  known  in  the  parentage,  and  where  the  off- 
spring is  removed  from  the  evil  environment  es- 
tablished by  the  evil  parents. 

The  doctrine  of  the  heredity  of  the  spirit  from 
our  parents  mnst  assume  that  the  disposition  of 
the  child  will  be  like  that  of  the  parents.  If  this 
were  a  true  assumption,  then  all  children  of  the 
same  parents  would  be  of  like  disposition  and 
have  the  same  moral  qualities.  This  is  not  even 
approximately  true.  Again,  an  analysis  of  the 
moral  and  character  qualities  of  the  parents  does 
not  account  for  the  moral  constitution  of  the 
child.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  conspicuous  ex- 
ample of  one  who  can  not  be  accounted  for  by 
his  parents.  The  biographical  mystery  of  his  per- 
sonality, so  often  mentioned,  would  no  longer  hold 
the  attention  if  the  assumed  law  of  heredity 
should  be  put  aside  as  invalid.  Who  can  ac- 
count on  the  basis  of  this  law  for  the  fact  that 
Aaron  Burr,  the  greatest  moral  degenerate  that 
America  has  ever  produced,  is  the  grandson  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  greatest  spiritual  genius 
that  America  has  yet  produced? 

Still  there  are  noticeable  resemblances  between 
children  and  parents.  Musicians  are  often  the 
children  of  musicians;  many  other  instances  of 
resemblance  may  be  noted.  (1)  The  influence  of 
environment  may  account  for  most  of  this.  (2) 
We  do  inherit  from  our  parents  a  physical  life. 
The  peculiarities  of  this  physique  show  them- 


selves  in  our  nervous  constitution.  This  nervous 
system  in  contact  with  a  certain  environment  will 
seek  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  which  should 
produce  great  similarity  in  .developed  personality 
between  parent  and  child.  The  physical  predis- 
position of  the  child  is  likely  to  follow  the  same 
or  similar  lines  that  were  taken  by  the  predispo- 
sition of  the  parent.  The  musician  will  have  very 
delicate,  susceptible  nerves.  His  case  is  some- 
what complicated.  Musical  temperament  implies 
both  heredity  and  culture.  The  delicate  nervous 
constitution — a  thing  of  the  flesh — must  be  inher- 
ited ;  it  can  never  be  acquired  or  produced  by  any 
reaction  on  the  environment.  But  to  be  a  really 
great  musician — especially  a  vocalist — one  must 
also  have  a  great,  a  cultured  soul — a  matter  of 
the  spirit,  which  comes  only  by  culture  and  en- 
vironment. Some  fine,  nervous  temperaments, 
able  to  give  the  technique  of  music,  need  a  broad 
literary  education,  that  they  may  have  great 
thoughts  to  express.  Other  physical  construc- 
tions are  favorable  to  a  certain  course,  as  they  re- 
act on  a  certain  environment.  This  seems  ade- 
quate to  account  for  all  that  is  proven  concerning 
the  inheritance  of  disposition.  On  the  other  hand, 
from  the  same  family  will  come  children  of  the 
most  diverse  temperaments — an  utterly  incompre- 
hensible fact  from  the  old  theory.  It  is  well  es- 
tablished that  the  moral  and  religious  acquire- 
ments of  parents  in,  the  direction  of  righteousness 
can  not  be  transmitted  directly.  They  must  be 


104    MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

independently  acquired  by  the  child.  It  would  be 
strange  injustice  that  God  had  put  us  under  the 
operation  of  a  law  by  which  we  could  inherit  the 
sins  of  our  parents,  but  could  not  inherit  their 
virtues.* 

The  persistence  of  a  similar  environment 
through  several  generations  may  produce  the 
semblance  of  heredity  without  ever  establishing 
it  in  the  least  degree.  "The  Alpine  plants  which 
Naegeli  transferred  to  a  southern  garden  were 
changed  by  their  new  surroundings;  their  de- 
scendants were  likewise  changed,  and  the  new 

*"A11  will  admit  this  kind  of  inheritance,  There  is  no  trouble  in  regard  to  char- 
acteristics that  are  evil.  All  admit  this  kind  of  inheritance.  'Like  begets  like.'  The 
books  are  full  of  it.  Adam  sinned  and  begat  a  child  in  his  own  sinful  likeness.  All 
other  Adams  have  done  the  same  thing.  Here  heredity  serves  a  good  purpose.  It  fur- 
nishes a  foundation  for  all  our  theologies  and  theodicies.  .  .  .  Has  God  made  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to  inherit  irreligion,  or  an  evil  nature,  and  not  made  it  possible  for  us  to  in- 
herit religion,  or  a  good  nature?  If  so,  then  why  did  He  make  us  creatures  of  inheritance 
at  all?  Would  a  wise  and  good  God  place  in  our  natures  a  law  that  becomes  effective 
only  when,  and  as  soon  as,  we  become  evil?  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have 
left  this  law  out  altogether?"— (Robins:  "The  Family,"  142,  143.) 

The  possibility  that  this  latter  question  might  have  an  affirmative  reply  did  not  seem 
to  have  entered  the  mind  of  this  author.  His  argument  cuts  the  ground  from  under- 
neath himself  as  well  as  from  underneath  those  whom  he  combats.  Science  says  that 
neither  virtues  nor  vices,  as  moral  qualities,  are  hereditable,  and  hence  God  is  vindi- 
cated as  thoroughly  as  in  his  conclusion  that  both  are  transmissible.  But  from  his  point 
of  view,  that  of  the  heritage  of  original  sin,  his  argument  is  very  effective. 

This  author,  and  doubtless  many  others,  base  their  belief  upon  Exod.  20:  5,  34:  7; 
Num.  14:  18,  in  which  it  is  said  that  God  visits  "the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the 
children,  upon  the  third  and  upon  the  fourth  generation."  They  take  this  as  a  state- 
ment of  the  law  of  heredity.  Such,  however,  it  is  not.  It  is  a  social  law,  and  in  the 
form  in  which  it  was  practiced  in  that  period  of  society  is  indefensible  to-day.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  it  is  not  a  law  of  heredity,  which  would  never  run  out  in  its  influences, 
but  it  covers  just  generations  enough  to  comprehend  those  who  might  at  the  time  be 
living  with  the  father-criminal  at  the  time  of  the  commission  of  his  crime.  It  is  not 
hereditary  in  its  character:  for  it  does  not  specifically  apply  to  those  who  are  to  be  born 
after  the  commission  of  the  crime,  but  to  those  who  may  be  already  living  with  the  sin- 
ner, and  presumably  participants  in  his  deed,  or  sympathetic  with  it  afterwards.  The 
commentary  on  this  law  is  the  cases  where  sinners  were  punished  with  their  wife  or 
wives,  their  children  and  relatives,  and  even  their  cattle.  It  in  no  sense  is  an  anticipa- 
tion of  the  modern  law  of  heredity  by  which  the  very  physical  stock  of  a  man  is  degen- 
erated by  some  race  poison,  and  its  effects  handed  down  to  his  posterity  forever 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE       105 

characters  reappeared  with  constancy  generation 
after  generation.  But  this  was  acquired  or  modi- 
ficational,  not  heredity  or  innate  resemblance,  as 
shown  by  the  fact  that  removal  from  the  garden 
to  poor  gravelly  soil  was  followed  by  a  reappear- 
ance of  the  original  Alpine  characteristics." 
( Thomson : ' '  Heredity, ' '  184. )  So  a  parent  whose 
upright  character  is  due  to  his  environment  may 
be  the  father  of  a  son,  who  in  similar  moral  in- 
fluences is  like  him.  That  sequence  kept  up  for 
a  few  generations,  however,  would  have  no  effect 
through  heredity  to  keep  a  son  from  evil  charac- 
ter who  was  brought  up  under  evil  influences  dur- 
ing the  formative  period  of  his  life.  We  can 
transmit  to  our  children  human  nature,  which  is 
in  itself  neither  moral  nor  immoral.  Environ- 
ment makes  the  child  moral  or  immoral,  without 
regard  to  who  was  his  parent,  in  so  far  as  any 
influence  outside  of  his  own  freedom  accounts  for 
what  he  is. 

James  Harvey  Robinson,  professor  of  History 
in  Columbia  University,  says:  " Almost  all  biolo- 
gists now  agree  that  acquired  characters  are  not 
transmitted  hereditarily;  for  we  do  not  come 
about  in  a  way  to  permit  this.  The  assiduity  of 
one  generation  in  acquiring  increasing  culture  or 
its  lethargy  in  neglecting  the  heritage  of  the  past 
does  not  affect  the  minute  egg  from  which  the 
next  generation  springs.  Culture  does  not  get 
into  the  blood;  not  even  language,  man's  earliest 
characteristic  achievement.  Had  Aristotle  him- 


106  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

self  been  reared  among  the  chimpanzees  he  might 
have  been  a  Grruebelkopf,  but  he  would  not  have 
known  how  to  talk."  ("Survey,"  May  6,  1911.) 
The  impossibility  of  handing  down  any  posi- 
tive moral  traits  is  apparent  again  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  content  of  consciousness.  In  our  na- 
ture there  are  certain  powers  capable  of  receiv- 
ing and  dealing  with  that  which  comes  to  us  from 
without.  This  is  the  gift  of  heredity.  But  this 
power  innate  does  not  of  itself  furnish  itself  with 
any  material  to  work  with  or  to  build  into  char- 
acter. That  must  all  come  from  the  outer  world. 
The  soul  is  at  first  an  empty  chamber  with  no 
hidden  inhabitants  in  secret  closets  which  after 
a  while  present  themselves  to  it.  Says  Baldwin: 
"There  is  no  question  in  psychological  circles  to- 
day of  the  absolute  mental  creation  which  was 
formerly  assumed.  The  newer  doctrine  of  'men- 
tal content, '  on  the  one  hand,  which  holds  that  no 
elements  of  representation  can  get  into  conscious- 
ness except  as  they  have  been  already  present  in 
some  form  in  presentation;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  doctrine  that  the  activities  of  conscious- 
ness are  always  conditioned  on  the  content  of 
presentation  and  representation  present  at  the 
time — these  positions  make  it  impossible  to  hold 
that  the  agent  or  mind  can  make  anything  for  it- 
self 'out  of  whole  cloth,'  so  to  speak."  ("Social 
and  Ethical  Interpretations,"  100.)  One  may 
say,  indeed,  that  these  powers  forming  conscious- 
ness are  weak  or  defective.;  but  that  is  quite  dif- 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE       107 

ferent  from  saying  that  they  are  sinful,  which 
involves  a  voluntary  element. 

But  after  all  we  persistently  believe  in  the  her- 
itage of  a  disposition  that  is  born  with  us,  to 
which  we  attribute  the  moral  course  of  our  life. 
We  need  not  deny  the  reality  of  disposition;  but 
we  need  to  give  more  attention  to  its  interpreta- 
tion. What  are  the  elements  of  the  disposition 
with  which  the  child  is  born  I  We  answer:  He  is 
social,  curious,  imitative,  active,  etc.  Among 
these  qualities  there  is  none  that  can  be  identified 
as  sheerly  evil.  What,  then,  is  an  evil  disposi- 
tion? How  does  it  arise?  There  is  a  certain 
average  of  qualities  which  we  call  human  nature, 
the  possession  of  which  is  thought  to  constitute 
normality,  and  is  sometimes  called  "horse  sense, " 
because  we  have  no  proper  term  for  it.  Baldwin, 
seeking  a  term  for  it,  calls  it  "  average  social 
judgment"  Deviation  from  this  is  called  pe- 
culiarity of  disposition.  The  difference  of  dispo- 
sition depends  upon  the  preponderance  of  traits. 
It  might  remove  some  presuppositions  from  our 
mind  if  we  should  compare  the  "average  social 
judgment"  of  the  various  races  and  peoples. 
What  a  different  thing  it  is  in  China  from  what 
it  is  in  America!  How  different  in  civilization 
now  from  what  it  was  a  thousand  years  ago.  This 
might  indicate  that  its  standards  are  quite  un- 
der the  power  of  education  and  environment, 
rather  than  an  invariable  innate  something. 

How  do  individuals  vary  from  this  human 


108  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

standard  of  character?  By  heredity  and  educa- 
tion. One  is  born  so  defective  mentally  that  he 
can  never  keep  step  with  society,  and  we  call  him 
an  idiot  and  place  him  in  an  institution  to  be 
cared  for.  The  aberration  of  another  is  not  in 
the  same  direction,  yet  he  is  against  the  standards 
of  society;  will  not  comply  with  them;  interferes 
with  the  rights  of  others.  He  is  a  criminal.  Some 
of  these  we  kill ;  some  we  imprison  for  life ;  some 
we  undertake  to  reform.  What  is  the  matter  with 
them?  Why  are  they  as  they  are?  Well,  some 
of  them  are  born  with  this  disposition.  Is  this 
disposition  a  positive  element  in  their  nature,  or 
a  defect,  a  minus  quantity?  Confining  our  an- 
swer now  to  those  born  with  the  criminal  dispo- 
sition, we  believe  it  is  a  minus,  not  a  plus  quan- 
tity. They  are  not  born  with  a  whole  human  na- 
ture plus  something  which  we  call  sin ;  but  with  a 
human  nature  in  which  something  is  lacking. 
Miss  Maude  E.  Miner,  secretary  of  the  New  York 
Probation  Association,  says  in  the  Second  Annual 
Eeport  concerning  the  girls  coming  under  the  cus- 
tody of  the  society:  "The  large  number  are  not 
guilty  of  moral  obliquity  because  they  are  natu- 
rally bad,  vicious,  and  depraved.  In  my  work  with 
girls  in  and  out  of  courts  and  prisons  during  the 
last  five  years  I  can  truthfully  say  that  I  have 
seen  very  few  girls  who  could  be  so  classed.  In 
comparison  with  the  total  number  few  have  chosen 
the  life  deliberately.  The  general  truth  is  that 
they  have  drifted  into  a  life  of  vice  through  weak- 


TEAITS  NOT  TBANSMISSIBLE       109 

ness  of  will  or  through  domination  by  a  stronger 
will,  and  have  gone  down  enslaved  by  drugs, 
drink,  and  'the  life'  itself.  Many  of  the  girls 
are  weak-willed,  and  in  some  instances  weak- 
minded,  and  they  have  not  had  the  normal  resist- 
ing power."  ("The  Survey,"  May  27,  1911,  pp. 
337,  8.)  Let  one  stand  before  a  company  of  men 
in  a  State  reformatory  institution  assembled  for 
chapel  exercises.  If  one  has  not  studied  the  situ- 
ation he  will  experience  a  surprise.  These  men, 
for  the  most  part,  are  not  the  bold,  reckless,  bra- 
vado, daring  fellows  that  he  expected  to  see. 
They  are  not  in  possession  of  all  that  average 
men  have,  plus  an  element  that  leads  them  to  defy 
society.  They  are  weak  men,  defectives.  Calling 
them  men,  we  see  that  they  are  not  fully  men. 
Being  less  than  men,  we  call  them  effeminate,  al- 
though we  do  not  apologize  to  the  ladies.  They 
have  not  full,  broad  jaws,  but  rather  undersized, 
receding  chins,  showing  them  defective  in  will- 
power. Instead  of  round  heads  and  square  fore- 
heads, they  are  thin  between  the  temples.  Their 
eyes  are  restless  and  unsteady.  They  are  not  all 
so;  for  there  is  another  class  here  also.  But  we 
may  rightly  conclude  that  those  who  have  the 
right  to  the  charity  of  judgment  because  of  her- 
itage are,  as  we  have  described,  with  different  va- 
riations showing  the  same  general  defects.  The 
others  that  show  the  lion's  strength,  whom  you 
would  not  want  to  meet  in  the  dark,  we  may  rea- 
sonably believe  are  they  who  have  been  trained 


110  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

to  crime.  Their  environment,  not  their  inherit- 
ance, has  been  their  ruin. 

If  under  the  head  of  disposition  we  are  think- 
ing of  the  born  genius,  it  is  yet  a  debatable  ques- 
tion whether  his  genius  is  due  to  strength  or  weak- 
ness, a  plus  to  average  human  nature  or  a  minus. 
While  forming  an  opinion  on  this  question,  let  one 
study  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  our  greatest  American 
poetic  genius,  and  answer  the  question  for  him- 
self. At  any  rate  ..this  matter  of  disposition  does 
not  seem  to  be  a  direct  moral  equipment,  indicat- 
ing a  certain  attitude  of  the  will;  but  rather 
something  seated  in  the  physical  equipment  of 
nerves,  or  that  which  sustains  the  nerves,  either 
in  the  brain  or  the  viscera.  These  are  subject 
to  hereditary  laws,  with  all  the  moral  advantage 
or  disadvantage  that  they  imply;  but  the  moral 
or  spiritual  qualities  so  often  accredited  to  he- 
redity are  not  directly  derivable  from  ancestors. 
Born  dispositions  are  imbedded  in  the  physical 
qualities ;  moral  dispositions  are  personal  acquire- 
ments of  life. 

Other  differences  of  disposition,  not  classified 
as  degenerate  or  criminal,  are  simply  the  prepon- 
derance of  certain  traits  or  their  absence  in  usual 
size,  and  are  rationally  traceable  to  the  physical 
equipment  or  the  culture  of  the  physical  or  moral 
nature.  One  has  a  different  disposition  when 
drunk  from  that  which  he  has  when  sober,  when 
tired  than  when  rested,  when  hungry  than  when 
satisfied.  As  one  may  strengthen  his  arm  by  ex- 


TRAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE       111 

ercise,  so  he  may  his  sense  of  justice,  or  purity, 
or  honesty.  Why  he  emphasizes  this  or  that  in 
his  growth  is  as  mysterious  as  why  he  chooses 
this  or  that  avocation ;  but  it  is  just  as  little  trace- 
able to  heredity.  No  man  is  born  a  lawyer;  no 
man  is  born  a  hero. 

The  transmissibility  of  Adam's  sin  or  its 
moral  effects  can  not  take  the  form  of  transmis- 
sion from  the  individual  father  to  his  son;  for  of 
such  transmission  there  is  not  the  slightest  evi- 
dence. Indeed,  it  is  not  thought  of  in  that  form. 
The  form  of  its  popular  belief  is  that  the  whole 
human  race  now  occupy  a  common  level  of  de- 
pravity, and  that  individual  exhibitions  of  wicked- 
ness are  chargeable  not  to  the  nature  derived 
from  one's  immediate  ancestors,  but  to  one's 
choice.  Each  individual,  unless  evidently  a  degen- 
erate, must  bear  his  own  moral  responsibility. 
Logically,  then,  the  conclusion  which  this  popular 
belief  must  draw  is  that,  as  a  consequence  of 
Adam's  sin,  God  gave  to  the  whole  race  a  differ- 
ent and  a  lower  moral  constitution  than  it  had 
possessed  before. 

As  thus  conceived  there  is  no  possibility  of  in- 
vestigation: for  we  have  no  knowledge  of  what 
the  constitution  of  the  race  was  before  the  as- 
sumed fall.  But  the  conclusion  can  not  be  upheld 
on  the  foundation  of  heredity:  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  moral  qualities,  which  of  course  are  ac- 
quired, is  not  provided  for  by  the  working  of 
heredity.  The  belief  must  rest  upon  a  special  act 


112  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

of  divine  judgment,  by  which  God  visited  moral 
calamity  not  only  upon  Adam,  who  had  sinned, 
but  upon  the  individuals  who  constitute  his  pos- 
terity, who  had  not  sinned.  To  say  that  "in 
Adam's  fall  we  sinned  all,"  is  a  moral  and  meta- 
physical confusion  of  thought  no  longer  permis- 
sible. The  belief,  then,  has  no  foundation  in  any 
known  law;  it  is  held  in  the  face  of  our  estimate 
of  justice,  and  attributes  to  God  what  the  uni- 
versal consciousness  of  mankind  condemns  in 
men;  we  must  say  it  is  arbitrarily  held,  with  no 
support  save  the  inertia  of  a  past  credulity. 

That  God  should  have  lowered  the  physical 
efficiency  of  the  race  is  a  possible  conception, 
based  upon  the  law  of  heredity,  whose  justice  we 
shall  in  a  moment  consider;  but  even  this  does 
not  imply  that  into  the  constitution  of  this  fallen 
race  an  active  principle  of  sin  was  injected  which 
made  inevitable  all  the  acts  of  sin  committed  by 
men  in  all  history.  To  go  so  far  as  that  is  a  seri- 
ous charge  against  Deity :  for  such  a  fiat  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  negative  act — something  more 
than  withdrawing  from  man  some  power  or  effi- 
ciency which  he  had  before.  It  is  the  creation 
and  implantation  of  an  active  principle  of  evil, 
and  in  making  man  a  sinner  served  not  the  ends 
of  divine  justice,  but  the  purposes  of  his  Satanic 
Majesty.  In  so  far  as  it  transcended  Adam's  per- 
sonality in  its  effects,  it  was  no  corrective  of  evil 
in  him,  while  it  worked  an  indisputable  injustice 
to  all  other  men. 


TEAITS  NOT  TRANSMISSIBLE       113 

The  workings  of  the  law  of  physical  heredity 
we  can  not  gainsay.  Whether  we  can  construe  it 
or  not  in  our  apologetics,  it  remains  an  unques- 
tioned fact.  But  we  surely  need  not  make  the 
problem  more  difficult  by  any  exaggeration  of  the 
facts.  We  should  carefully  study  its  workings 
and  know  its  extent  and  limitation  before  we  make 
it  a  problem  or  feel  the  need  of  its  defense. 

1.  God  has  written  it  in  the  constitution  of 
humanity.    It  is  an  implication  of  the  solidarity 
of  the  race.    However  much  trouble  it  may  seem 
to  have  caused,  its  blessings  are  beyond  all  meas- 
uring.   Indeed,  the  race  as  known  is  an  impossi- 
bility without  it. 

2.  It  tends  to  betterment.    By  its  workings  de- 
fectives come  to  such  a  point  that  at  last  they 
drop  out,  while  anything  in  the  direction  of  per- 
fection tends  to  greater  stability  and  greater  re- 
productiveness.     So  that  we  may  say:  the  law 
weeds  out  the  poorest  and  preserves  and  increases 
the  best. 

3.  While  the  race  is  physically  a  unit,  morally 
each  individual  is  a  unit,  subject  to  influence  from 
others,  but  not  to  complete  mastery.    So  the  very 
nature  of  morality  is  such — having  at  its  heart 
individual  freedom — that  there  is  no  ground  for 
desiring  that  moral  character  be  subject  to  hered- 
ity or  believing  that  it  is. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

THERE  are  certain  natural  stages  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  child,  but  they  vary  somewhat  in  dif- 
ferent children.  Their  noticeable  expression  de- 
pends much  upon  the  influences  that  gather  about 
the  child  at  the  time.  So  many  items  are  involved 
in  this  development  that  their  grouping  is  more 
or  less  arbitrary,  and  hence  different  authors  may 
vary  much  in  their  delimitation  and  classification. 
We  will  name  the  following  periods  and  will  seek 
only  such  description  as  suggests  the  opportunity 
of  moral  impression.  In  this,  however,  it  is  easy 
to  make  mistake  by  omission.  We  are  coming  to 
see  more  and  more  that  every  physical  fact  may 
have  some  relation  to  moral  change  as  it  does  to 
intellectual.  We  note  also  that  certain  develop- 
ments cross  the  lines  of  division  and  characterize 
two  or  more  periods:  1.  First  childhood  to  the 
seventh  month;  2.  Second  childhood  to  the  end 
of  the  second  year ;  3.  Third  childhood  to  the  end 
of  the  seventh  year ;  4.  Later  childhood,  from  the 
seventh  to  the  twelfth  year ;  5.  Adolescence.  Our 
subject  does  not  directly  carry  us  farther  than 
later  childhood ;  what  we  shall  say  of  later  periods 

114 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        115 

will  be  guided  by  the  purpose  only  of  showing  the 
fruitage  of  childhood  training  and  guidance. 

SECTION  I.     THE  FIKST  CHILDHOOD. 

The  new-born  babe  is  a  very  interesting  being, 
but  very  helpless  and  very  insignificant  in  his  at- 
tainments. He  can  see  nothing,  can  hear  nothing, 
and  can  feel  no  sorrow.  It  is  probable  that  in  all 
the  actions  of  which  he  is  capable  he  could  get 
along  quite  as  well  with  a  spinal  cord  and  could 
dispense  for  the  time  being  with  his  brain.  Na- 
ture has  done  very  much  and  very  little  for  him : 
very  little  in  present  realization,  very  much  in  giv- 
ing him  a  capacity  for  becoming.  A  fly,  a  bee,  or 
a  mosquito  is  born  comparatively  complete,  ready 
for  business  at  its  first  salutation.  Any  one  of 
these  can  take  up  its  life-tasks  and  make  its  way 
immediately.  It  knows  everything  it  ever  can 
know;  it  can  do  everything  now  it  ever  can  do. 
The  penalty,  however,  of  this  full  equipment  is 
that  it  can  never  become ;  it  can  never  learn  any- 
thing; it  can  never  change  into  any  other  condi- 
tion. All  the  resources  of  its  whole  lifetime  are 
immediately  available ;  nothing  will  ever  be  added 
to  them.  Not  so  the  child.  He  has  no  complete 
instincts,  so  that  he  can  do  scarcely  anything  with 
their  help;  and  he  has  no  reason  or  thought  by 
which  he  may  make  his  way.  But  his  capacity  to 
become  is  boundless.  He  knows  nothing,  but  can 
learn  everything.  He  is  next  to  nothing;  his  ca- 


116  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

pacity  to  be  can  be  measured  only  in  divine  units 
of  being.  The  psalmist's  conception  is  justified  by 
the  latest  conclusions  of  research:  "Thou  hast 
made  him  a  little  lower  than  God."  "The  baby 
lives  in  a  sort  of  coelentareate  stage  of  almost 
vegetative  life.  His  whole  business  seems  to  be 
to  eat,  digest,  breathe  and  sleep,  to  survive  and 
grow.  His  education  consists  very  largely  in 
making  his  physical  surroundings  as  favorable  to 
bodily  health  as  they  possibly  can  be.  But  the 
baby  gives  dim  promise  of  something  higher  and 
better.  .  .  .  He  kicks  and  wriggles;  he  will  soon 
run  and  walk.  The  young  child  wishes  to  be  con- 
tinually in  motion.  He  can  not  sit  still  long.  The 
muscular  system  is  the  seat  and  center  of  his  de- 
velopment. .  .  .  This  muscular  exercise  is  lift- 
ing all  his  vital  organs,  heart,  lungs,  digestive 
system,  and  is  giving  him  the  first  elements  of 
power — a  tough  body.  It  is  tuning  up  the  nerv- 
ous system  and  stimulating  the  brain.  .  .  .  He 
is  still  in  the  muscular  stage,  but  curiosity  and 
wonder  and  some  thought  show  the  dawn  of  the 
era  of  mind  which  quickly  follows."  (Tyler: 
"Man  in  Evolution,"  87.) 

The  first  childhood  is  the  period  of  the  first 
dentition;  it  is  the  instinctive  period.  Virchow 
calls  a  child  at  this  stage  a  "spinal  reflex  being." 
He  has  a  purely  reflex  activity  up  to  about  the 
third  month.  That  means  that  his  actions  have 
no  volitional  element,  and  consequently  no  moral 
quality,  any  more  than  the  motions  of  a  frog  un- 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        117 

der  an  electric  stimulus.  The  baby-  comes  into  the 
world  with  an  apparatus  ready  to  act  as  if  angry; 
but  such  action  can  have  no  moral  significance. 
Preyer  likens  the  early  cries  of  a  child  "to  the 
peeping  of  a  chick  breaking  its  shell,  or  the  bleat- 
ing of  a  new-born  lamb,  and  observes  that  they 
have  no  more  intellectual  or  emotional  significance 
than  the  first  cries  of  these  animals.  They  are 
produced  as  well  by  a  child  without  a  cerebrum 
as  by  a  child  with  one.  The  basal  ganglia  and 
the  appropriate  stimulus  are  all  that  are  nec- 
essary on  the  neural  side  for  their  production." 
(Major:  "First  Steps  in  Mental  Growth,"  282,  3.) 
However,  the  cries  soon  come  to  have  the  value 
of  expressing  hunger,  pain,  cold,  discomfort.  The 
first  step  in  the  development  of  the  sense  of  sight 
is  the  perception  of  light,  which  is  soon  after 
birth.  This  is  followed  sometimes  as  early  as  the 
fourth  day  by  the  ability  to  hear  sounds.  Light 
reflected  from  bright-colored  objects  will  be  noted. 
The  co-ordination  of  the  muscles  which  direct  the 
eyes,  the  fixation  of  the  eyes  upon  objects,  and 
following  the  objects  with  the  eyes,  are  the  next 
steps  in  sight  development.  This  has  been  ob- 
served, and  therefore  clear  visual  perception  es- 
tablished, when  the  child  was  from  one  to  two 
months  old.  Among  objects  which  attracted  the 
child  first  and  most  was  the  human  face;  the 
mother's  face  and  voice  may  be  known  within  two 
months.  When  two  senses  work  together  they 
hold  the  attention  more  closely  than  one  working 


118  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

alone.  We  emphasize  the  importance  of  this  early 
recognition  of  the  mother  because,  as  we  have  ar- 
gued in  another  place,  the  spirit  of  the  child  is 
to  be  formed  by  the  spirit  of  the  mother  chiefly, 
and  before  any  other  object  begins  its  work  the 
mother  has  gripped  the  spirit  of  the  child  and 
has  begun  her  work.  Very  early  he  differentiates 
the  character  of  sounds,  whether  agreeable  or 
otherwise,  and  is  soothed  by  gentle  sounds  and 
distressed  by  harsh  sounds.  The  ear  is  the  sense 
organ  through  which  the  nervous  system  is  most 
powerfully  and  profoundly  acted  upon.  Loud  or 
sudden  noises  produce  instinctive  fear  in  the 
early  days.  True  or  genuine  fear,  however,  is  not 
possible  to  a  child  under  three  or  four  months; 
for  that  implies  a  definite  idea  of  evil  or  danger. 
A  child  that  has  suffered  much  is  more  likely  to 
show  these  apparent  fears  than  one  that  is 
stronger  and  healthier.  This  fear  is  excited  by 
sudden  changes,  and  fear  of  strangers  is  some- 
times awakened  when  he  is  four  to  twelve  months 
old.  Thus  again  nature  is  shutting  out  the 
strange  world  and  locking  him  up  with  his  mother 
and  the  family  life  where  he  is  cherished  and 
whose  right  it  is  to  fashion  his  soul. 

The  following  general  remarks  have  their  ap- 
plication as  well  to  later  periods ;  but  they  are  in- 
troduced here  because  they  are  not  inapplicable 
to  this  earliest  period.  Perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant thing  to  be  noted  in  the  very  early  period  of 
life  is  that  "habits  of  feeling"  and  fundamental 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT         119 

tastes  may  be  formed  and  modified.  Feelings  lie 
quite  close  to  the  instincts.  For  this  reason  it  has 
been  thought  that  they  could  not  be  changed.  But 
even  the  instincts  of  animals  can  be  modified.  A 
chicken,  if  not  given  the  opportunity  to  follow 
within  the  first  few  days,  will  never  develop  it; 
or,  if  opportunity  is  given,  will  learn  to  follow 
human  beings.  When  quite  young  an  animal  may 
be  made  vicious  by  teasing,  which  by  kindness 
could  be  made  docile  and  kind.  A  colt  may  be  so 
fooled  with  as  to  be  almost  useless  afterwards  as 
a  horse.  So  the  habitual  mood  of  a  child  may 
be  turned  this  way  or  that  to  a  very  essential  de- 
gree. A  child  may  be  teased  into  habitual  sus- 
picion. He  may  be  nagged  into  habitual  defen- 
siveness.  A  great  battle  in  after  life  may  be 
brought  about  by  the  carelessness  with  which  he 
is  handled.  Many  people  handle  babies  as  if  they 
were  playthings,  entirely  for  their  own  amuse- 
ment, regardless  of  the  present  or  permanent  im- 
pression on  their  nature.  They  do  not  forecast  the 
permanent  twist  made  in  the  disposition  by  their 
thoughtless  actions  and  words.  Yet  there  is  no 
future  time  when  the  impressions  made  are  so 
deep  and,  therefore,  so  permanent.  Thoughtless 
hands  should  never  touch  a  child. 

Character's  formation  is  largely  the  question 
of  the  acquirement  of  certain  tastes.  When  these 
lie  deep  down  in  the  nature  they  will  load  the 
balances  of  the  great  decisions  made  in  life  be- 
tween the  right  road  and  the  wrong.  Does  a  child 


120  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

love  the  beautiful,  the  true,  the  chaste;  does  he 
love  to  study,  to  investigate,  to  discover  facts  and 
truths?  Each  one  of  these  tastes  is  like  a  hook 
on  which  may  be  securely  fastened  certain  moral 
appeals  in  the  after  life.  Appeals  have  influence 
not  because  of  their  own  weight  and  justness,  but 
rather  because  of  the  reaction  that  the  nature 
makes  to  which  the  appeal  is  made.  So  in  the 
first  or  second  childhood  we  are  arranging  the 
conditions  on  which  future  conquests  may  be  se- 
cured. This  chance  lost,  and  after-efforts  will 
have  little  effect.  Habits,  which  are  originally 
merely  habits'  imposed  by  the  parent,  come  later 
to  be  rationalized,  adopted,  and  made  the  basis 
of  feeling  and  intellectual  attitudes. 

SECTION  II.     SECOND  CHILDHOOD. 

Many  conceive  of  the  nature  of  a  child  as  an 
•infolded  being  like  a  rosebud.  The  petals,  the  sta- 
mens, and  every  element  are  already  there  in  the 
form  in  which  they  will  afterwards  be  manifested. 
One  may  take  the  rose  and  analyze  it  and  find 
all  of  these  parts  as  they  will  afterwards  appear 
in  the  complete  rose.  It  may  change  its  color  and 
acquire  toughness  of  texture  as  it  opens,  but  noth- 
ing new  will  be  added  to  it  as  it  unfolds.  Such 
is  a  rather  popular  conception  of  the  child.  Many 
do  not  conceive  of  the  possibility  of  adding  any- 
thing to  his  nature  or  putting  anything  into  his 
character.  They  think  of  the  child  as  having  a 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        121 

certain  spiritual  form,  given  to  him  through  in- 
heritance, and  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  give 
him  a  chance  to  unfold.  At  about  fourteen  years 
of  age  he  will  have  acquired  the  power  to  give 
the  real  and  final  expression  to  his  nature,  which 
he  will  do  notwithstanding  any  influences  that 
may  have  been  brought  to  bear  to  change  him. 
Indeed,  they  think  that  any  interference  with  his 
spontaneous  development  would  be  likely  to  mar 
him,  just  as  any  manipulation  of  a  rosebud  would 
permanently  mar  its  potential  beauty.  Parents 
accepting  this  theory  of  the  child-nature  object  to 
teaching  him  practices  or  instilling  in  him  habits 
that  anticipate  his  ultimate  choices.  They  would 
not  approve  of  infant  baptism,  or  the  learning 
the  forms  of  prayer,  or  church-going  habits,  or 
anything  in  general  of  a  religious  nature  that  is 
not  his  personal  choice. 

This  assumption  is  certainly  of  the  greatest 
and  most  fundamental  importance.  If  true,  there 
is  little  significance  in  the  parental  function.  To 
have  given  the  child  physical  birth  and  to  provide 
physical  sustenance  and  educational  opportuni- 
ties is  about  all  that  a  parent  can  do.  The  people 
who  adopt  this  view  do  not  apply  it  in  its  edu- 
cational form.  They  do  not  wait  to  see  what  is 
in  a  child's  mind  before  sending  him  to  school. 
On  questions  of  mathematics,  logic,  or  history 
they  would  not  submit  the  decision  to  him.  It  is 
apparent,  even  to  those  believing  this  general 
view  of  the  child,  that  the  mental  life  is  rather 


122  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

empty  until  it  is  filled.  But  by  some  rather  ex- 
ceptional mode  of  reasoning  they  are  ready  to  act 
on  this  theory  concerning  his  moral  and  religious 
nature. 

The  view  is  just  as  untrue  morally  as  it  is 
mentally.  No  doubt  at  birth  there  are  certain  ele- 
ments given  that  can  with  difficulty  and  only  par- 
tially be  changed.  These  are  all  implications  of 
the  nervous  constitution;  it  will  be  very  hard  to 
modify  that  or  defy  its  workings.  If  we  know 
the  nerve  weaknesses  we  may  protect  him  at  that 
point  and  secure  to  him  a  different  and  a  longer 
career  than  would  be  afforded  by  the  average  en- 
vironment. The  nerve  qualities  will  aid  or  defeat 
the  avocation  in  life.  They  may  make  possible 
or  impossible  the  career  of  a  musician,  and  modify 
to  a  degree  the  possible  success  in  various  other 
pursuits.  But  it  is  quite  an  extreme  to  say  the 
child  is  a  born  musician,  or  poet,  or  mathemati- 
cian. It  is  better  to  think  of  him  as  an  empty 
vessel  of  a  certain  size  and  texture.  He  is  made 
so  that  he  can  hold  certain  things  and  a  certain 
amount;  but  the  vessel  has  nothing  in  it  yet.  It 
will  never  have  in  it  anything  that  is  not  put  in  it. 
It  will  be  very  hard  to  put  into  it  something  that 
it  was  not  made  to  hold,  or  to  make  it  hold  more 
than  nature  constructed  it  for.  Yet  no  one  in 
advance  can  profitably  estimate  the  character- 
capacity  of  a  child.  I  think  the  prognosticates 
would  have  missed  it  on  Abraham  Lincoln  by  very 
large  measurements.  We  can  not  make  a  brute 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        123 

of  the  child — unless  he  is  born  an  idiot;  we  can 
not  make  him  an  angel.  But  somewhere  between 
these  limits  he  will  be  what  we  put  into  him 
mentally  and  morally.  His  boundaries  are  set 
by  human  nature;  but  inside  this  limitation  we 
may  put  in  the  moral  qualities  that  we  choose, 
provided  we  will  work  according  to  the  law  of 
his  being.  The  strength  of  the  animal  impulse 
will  give  the  conditions  of  the  moral  contest  which 
will  ensue ;  but  for  the  spiritual  side  of  that  con- 
flict we  may  equip  him.  If  this  be  the  true  view 
of  human  nature,  then  the  parental  function  is  as 
essential  morally  as  it  is  physically.  Physically 
the  parents  give  to  him  being;  morally  they  may 
also  give  him  well-being.  He  will  perish  physic- 
ally if  they  do  not  supply  him  material  food;  he 
will  just  as  surely  perish  spiritually  if  they  do  not 
supply  him  with  spirit-food.  As  both  parents  are 
essential  to  his  physical  existence,  so  both  parents 
have  an  essential  part  in  his  spiritual  building. 
The  function  of  the  mother  in  rearing  the  child 
is  generally  conceded;  but  the  elements  that  a 
father  contributes  are  not  so  usually  observed.  A 
boy  is  wonderfully  handicapped  who  loses  either 
early  in  life.  The  kindlier  qualities,  the  elements 
noted  in  good  manners  are  apt  to  be  unacquired 
unless  a  mother-love  shall  instill  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  deeper  elements  of  honor  and 
moral  endurance  are  not  acquired  so  easily  with- 
out the  father.  A  shell  of  respectability  will  be 
built  up  in  a  boy  who  grows  up  with  women ;  but 


124  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

he  will  be  unreliable  in  the  rugged  struggles 
known  to  public  life — I  speak  of  tendency,  know- 
ing well  how  successfully  certain  fathers  and 
mothers  have  overcome  their  difficulties  when 
compelled  to  work  out  the  problem  alone. 

This  view  of  the  child  increases  immensely  the 
parental  responsibility  and  accentuates  the  impor- 
tance of  influences  received  as  early  as  the  period 
we  are  now  studying.  He  is  now  receiving  ele- 
ments of  life,  real  character-stuff,  through  eye 
and  ear,  and  nothing  capable  of  making  an  impres- 
sion upon  him  is  unimportant.  The  child  ia  this 
period  learns  to  walk  and  to  talk ;  mastication  be- 
gins, which  is  the  first  break  in  his  close  physical 
connection  with  the  mother-life.  These  powers 
indicate  the  broadening  of  the  sources  of  influence 
that  reach  him.  Hitherto  he  could  receive  only 
those  influences  which  came  to  him;  now  he  can 
go  after  impressions,  and  when  they  are  not  ap- 
parent, can  ask  for  them.  While  at  this  time  the 
majority  of  the  higher  animals — also  automatic 
idiots — have  their  mental  development  arrested, 
the  child  parts  company  forever  with  them;  for 
he  is  now  beginning  in  real  earnest  that  mental 
growth  which  distinguishes  him  from  them.  The 
social  life  is  now  established  and  will  grow  more 
and  more.  Fear  and  anger,  the  animal  emotions, 
are  very  early  exhibited.  If  the  fear  is  allayed 
or  dispelled,  its  exhibition  becomes  rare;  if  the 
anger  is  never  allowed  to  avail  anything,  it  be- 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        125 

conies  very  infrequent.  Affection  and  sympathy, 
the  higher  emotions,  come  later ;  and  compassion, 
one  of  the  highest  emotions,  does  not  appear  until 
near  the  close  of  the  period.  Different  authors 
have  noted  the  evident  sorrow  of  the  child  when 
the  picture  of  a  man  was  cut  into  by  a  pair  of 
scissors.  These  higher  emotions,  being  encour- 
aged, grow  rapidly  and  become  habitual. 

Among  intellectual  qualities,  attention,  mem- 
ory, volition,  and  somatic  consciousness,  powers 
shared  by  the  lower  animals,  are  first  developed, 
while  active  imagination  and  reason,  the  essen- 
tially human  powers,  are  the  last  to  be  developed. 
Some  idea  of  number  is  now  shown.  Imitation, 
the  power  which  is  of  so  great  importance  through 
all  the  years  of  parental  guidance,  now  appears. 
It  is  the  spiritual  hand  which  the  child  out- 
stretches and  with  which  he  takes  to  himself  all 
within  sight  and  hearing.  It  is  deeply  imbedded 
in  the  nature;  arises  as  an  impulse  previous  to 
reason  and  volition,  so  that  he  can  have  no  choice ; 
he  must  imitate.  Before  reason  or  volition  can 
play  any  great  role  this  activity  has  the  child's 
development  in  its  grip  and  reigns  supreme.  Its 
causal  law  is,  "The  idea  of  a  movement  is  al- 
ready the  beginning  of  that  movement."  The 
idea  is  not  completely  known  until  it  has  been 
experienced.  In  other  places  we  have  called  at- 
tention to  the  advantage  that  it  gives  the  parent. 
We  need  not  dwell  further  upon  it  here.  The 


126  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

period  of  the  creative  imagination  begins  now 
and  extends  on  to  the  tenth  year.  Its  importance 
will  appear  in  the  next  period. 

SECTION  III.    THE  THIRD  CHILDHOOD. 

The  Third  Childhood  extends  from  the  end 
of  the  second  to  the  seventh  year.  In  the  work 
of  parental  direction  of  character-formation  this 
is  undoubtedly  the  most  important  period  of  all. 
It  has  been  preceded  by  a  physical  foundation- 
laying;  it  will  be  followed  by  other  periods  im- 
portant in  child  self -direction ;  but  this  is  the 
golden  opportunity  for  the  work  of  parent  or 
guardian  spirit.  Imitation  and  authority  have 
their  fullest  operation  now,  the  two  arms  which 
may  encompass  the  child-life  with  a  fair  degree 
of  absoluteness.  The  important  physical  changes 
are  the  second  dentition  and  the  arrival  of  the 
brain  to  its  full  size.  He  is  now  slowly  growing 
out  of  the  absolute  domination  of  the  emotional 
element.  In  the  ideal  imitative  period,  from  the 
fourth  to  the  tenth  year,  he  is  building  with  the 
best  material  that  is  within  his  observation,  and 
with  the  power  of  a  creative  imagination  which 
runs  through  the  same  time  he  is  dissecting  this 
observed  material  and  building  up  its  elements 
into  a  life-castle  of  his  own.  He  will  not  rebel  at 
authority  if  consistently  and  unvaryingly  ap- 
plied. He  is  now  forming  habits  that  lie  at  the 
deepest  foundation  of  his  life,  which  like  guard- 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        127 

rails  will  fence  the  whole  subsequent  career. 
Blessed  is  the  child  whose  parent  now  recognizes 
and  conscientiously  uses  his  opportunity,  which  is 
very  ample,  but  once  passed,  can  never  be  recalled. 
Imitation  precedes  the  acquisition  of  language 
and  is  a  powerful  aid  in  its  acquirement.  Indeed, 
language  is  acquired  through  the  imitation  of 
sounds.  While  imitation  is  an  activity  which  the 
lower  animals  exercise,  and  is  sometimes  ac- 
counted a  power  of  low  grade  for  that  reason,  yet 
in  the  forms  above  mimicry  only  self-acting  be- 
ings or  souls  imitate.  Not  only  is  language  its 
product,  but  habit  is  also:  for  habit  is  nothing 
more  than  self-imitation.  Underneath  it  lies  a 
power  which  gives  it  all  the  greater  effect  in  char- 
acter-formation, the  power  of  admiration  or  love. 
"The  individual  sees  ideals  before  him  and  im- 
personates them;  loves  them,  and  imitates  them. 
Gradually  he  acquires  as  a  second  nature  his 
ideals,  and  must  keep  growing  on  into  new  and 
higher  ideals."  Thus  imitation  is  based  on  love, 
and  it  is  emphatically  true  of  the  actively  appro- 
priating nature  of  a  child  that  what  he  loves  he 
becomes — as  true  as  that  other  law :  what  he  does 
he  becomes.  Imitation  plays  an  important  role 
from  another  point  of  view :  it  is  a  sort  of  eman- 
cipation from  a  self  without  content  to  a  self 
which  he  admires.  Here,  as  everywhere,  nature 
abhors  a  vacuum.  Imitation  is  powerful  again, 
because  it  begins  so  early,  about  the  fifteenth 
week,  and  holds  its  compelling  place  on  until  rea- 


128  MOBAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

soning  has  crowded  it  from  its  regnant  rule  in 
the  adolescent  years. 

As  we  analyze  this  imitative  activity  we  dis- 
cover there  is  a  slight  tendency  to  imitate  things, 
as  an  engine;  but  much  more  to  imitate  persons. 
Another  important  element  of  this  tendency  is 
that  the  child  imitates  the  adult  much  more  than 
other  children  or  animals,  and  the  imitation  of 
adults  increases  with  the  years  up  till  eleven  years 
of  age.  Thus  the  Almighty  has  given  the  parent 
an  advantage  over  any  competitors  in  influence 
during  these  years.  Neither  things  nor  animals 
nor  undeveloped  children  can  take  away  the  child 
from  the  molding  influence  of  the  parent.  There 
are  tied  up  in  this  law  unmeasured  possibilities 
for  the  good  of  the  future  generation. 

The  Creative  Imagination:  the  Romancing 
Period. — We  adults  are  learning  that  we  do  not 
live  under  the  intellectual  dominion  purely  of  the 
world  of  objective  fact.  The  mind  is  constructive. 
Its  ultimate  construction  is  limited  by  the  mate- 
rial that  comes  to  it  from  without;  but  the  form 
in  which  it  builds  and  the  arrangement  of  the  men- 
tal product  is  by  no  means  identical  with  the  ob- 
jective material.  We  are  idealists,  to  whom  the 
objective  world  furnishes  the  bricks  and  mortar 
that  we  are  using  in  building  our  castles,  which 
are  the  true  home  of  the  soul. 

It  is  not  wonderful,  then,  that  it  is  quite  easy 
for  the  child  to  be  estranged  from  the  literal  facts 
of  sensation  and  perception.  By  himself  he  will 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        129 

construct  a  world  for  himself,  and  others  can 
greatly  aid  him.  The  elements  of  this  imagina- 
tive world  are  supplied  by  ears  and  eyes.  The 
mind  never  imagines  anything  the  elements  of 
which  it  has  not  experienced.  But  the  use  he 
makes  of  these  elements  is  not  the  same  that  a 
mirror  makes  of  the  objects  supplied  it.  With  an 
old  hat  on  his  head,  a  glove  on  one  hand,  and  a 
basket  loaded  with  a  few  toys,  he  will  make  a 
journey  to  the  farthest  limits  of  his  habitable  orb 
without  ever  going  out  the  door.  What  an  op- 
portunity does  this  activity  afford  the  guardian 
spirit  of  his  life  to  direct  in  his  world-building  by 
supplying  ideal  and  beautiful  material  out  of 
which  a  soul-enlarging  world  may  be  constructed ! 
What  an  opportunity  it  affords  to  careless  or  mis- 
chievous minds  to  furnish  material  for  a  world 
of  terror  and  vice !  Charles  Lamb  recalls  the  time 
"when  through  the  ignorant  officiousness  of  his 
old  nurse,  whose  disciplinary  methods  were  worse 
than  the  faults  she  sought  to  correct,  as  well  as 
the  terror-starting  illustrations  of  his  father's 
Stackhouse  Bible,  night  time,  solitude,  and  the 
dark  were  his  hell;  for  from  his  fourth  to  his 
eighth  year  he  never  laid  his  head  upon  his  pillow 
without  an  assurance,  which  realized  its  own 
prophecy,  of  seeing  some  frightful  specter." 
Goblins  and  ghosts  are  more  accessible  instru- 
ments of  torture,  and  by  no  means  less  effective, 
than  the  rod  with  irresponsible,  conscienceless, 
and  thoughtless  parents  and  others.  The  applica- 
9 


13P  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tion  of  the  rod  might  have  been  beneficial,  even 
if  cruel  and  needless,  its  hurt  would  have  been 
temporary ;  but  the  goblins  and  ghosts  will  never 
let  up  their  stings  and  starts  while  life  shall  last. 
Burns  catalogues  his  infant  tormentors  as  "dev- 
ils, ghosts,  fairies,  brownies,  warlocks,  spunkies, 
kelpies,  elf-candles,  dead-lights,  wraiths,  appari- 
tions, cantraips,  giants,  enchanted  towers,  drag- 
ons, and  other  trumpery."  One  wonders  what 
else  could  be  outside  of  this  list.  He  said:  "It 
had  so  strange  an  effect  upon  my  imagination 
that  to  this  hour,  in  my  nocturnal  rambles,  I  some- 
times keep  a  sharp  lookout  on  suspicious  places; 
and  though  nobody  can  be  more  skeptical  than  I 
am  in  such  matters,  yet  it  often  takes  an  effort 
of  philosophy  to  shake  off  these  idle  terrors." 

"Wordsworth  evidently  had  a  similar  experi- 
ence; for  he  speaks  of 

"  Huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  do  not  live 
Like  living  men,  moved  slowly  through  the  mind 
By  day,  and  were  a  trouble  to  my  dreams." 

Barring  accidents,  children  will  not  be  more 
afraid  of  the  dark  than  the  daylight.  It  is  prob- 
able that  because  people  have  pictured  the  dark- 
ness as  inhabited  by  the  strange  and  mysterious 
powers,  against  which  the  child  can  not  protect 
itself  when  suggested,  that  they  often  show  ex- 
ception to  this  statement.  In  so  far  as  accidental 
suggestions  are  likely  to  occur  should  we  be  on 
our  guard  against  imparting  fears  of  this  kind. 
The  "spooks"  and  the  apparitions  should  be  exor- 


PEEIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        131 

cised  from  childhood  land  by  a  generation  of  care- 
ful and  truthful  teaching — a  teaching  which  must 
not  leave  the  darkness  uninhabited  to  be  peopled 
by  any  mischance  with  the  "bogey"  spirits;  but 
which  will  instill  the  quiet  confidence  that  "God 
dwelleth  in  the  darkness  as  in  the  light,"  and  His 
child  may  abide  without  fear  or  danger. 

The  romancing  tendency  of  the  child  should 
be  carefully  discriminated  in  its  moral  character. 
It  does  not  have  the  moral  character  of  lying,  al- 
though at  times  it  may  have  that  appearance. 
The  child  makes  an  imaginary  world  out  of  words 
as  well  as  out  of  actions.  It  is  not  exceptional 
that  this  imaginative  falsification  may  come  forth 
in  answer  to  questions,  and  the  child  seem  in  an 
effort  to  deceive.  It  may  be  paradoxical  that 
there  is  such  a  normal  activity  as  this  in  the  child 
whose  nature  receives  a  dreadful  shock  at  dis- 
honesty in  others.  The  key  to  the  solution  is  that 
the  two  elements  run  side  by  side  and  are  not  to 
him  consciously  opposed  to  each  other.  The 
make-believe  world  is  not  a  violation  to  truth  in 
his  own  feeling.  If  parents  will  carefully  make 
the  distinction,  it  need  not  be  so  regarded  by  us, 
even  when  that  made-up  world  has  such  a  vivid 
possession  of  the  mind  that  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
entangle the  fact.  Our  romance  to  children  need 
not  violate  their  nature;  but  a  distinct  misstate- 
ment  of  fact  to  them  will  destroy  our  influence 
over  them.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  holds  that  children 
' '  should  be  told  the  exact  truth  when  they  ask 


132  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

a  serious  question."  A  little  boy  put  this  con- 
tradiction of  truth  and  romance  in  form  one  day, 
when  he  said,  i  i  What  my  mother  says  is  so,  even 
when  it  ain't  so."  I  leave  to  others  the  solution 
of  the  Santa  Claus  problem,  with  this  incident: 
A  little  fellow  said  at  the  recent  Christmas,  "I 
have  found  out  about  this  Santa  Claus  business, 
and  now  I  am  going  to  find  out  about  this  Jesus 
business."  Sydney  Smith  said  that  "he  would 
a  thousand  times  prefer  that  his  child  should 
die  in  the  bloom  of  youth  rather  than  it  should 
live  and  learn  to  disbelieve." 

Mrs.  Lamoreaux  calls  attention  to  one  of  the 
dangers  of  misunderstanding  this  activity  of  the 
mind.  She  says :  * '  This  world  of  make-believe  is 
as  real  to  him  as  the  world  which  is  seen  through 
his  eyes,  and  often  he  can  not  distinguish  between 
the  two.  Many  a  little  heart  has  quivered  over 
the  punishment  inflicted  for  'lying,'  when  willful 
misrepresentation  was  not  in  his  thoughts.  How- 
ever, harsh  treatment  of  a  vivid  imagination  may 
result  in  real  deception  later  on;  for  the  child 
can  not  help  *  seeing  things'  too  wonderful  to  be 
enjoyed  alone,  and  then,  perforce,  there  must  be 
deliberate  planning  to  escape  the  punishment. 

"This  harshness  also  begins  to  raise  an  in- 
visible barrier  between  the  child  and  the  parent. 
It  was  felt  by  a  little  maiden  of  rare  fancy,  who 
said  in  a  whisper  at  the  conclusion  of  one  of  these 
marvelous  tales,  'But  don't  tell  mamma.'  The 
impassable  wall  between  many  a  mother  and 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        133 

daughter  in  later  years,  once  consisted  of  but  a 
scattered  stone  here  and  there."  ("The  Unfold- 
ing Life,"  66,  67.)  This  activity  should  be  culti- 
vated by  an  active  sympathy.  It  is  one  of  the 
rich  powers  of  the  being.  The  constructive  imag- 
inative power  will  be  needed  in  any  vocation  of 
life.  To  see  things  that  are  not  yet  is  the  essen- 
tial element  of  the  statesman,  the  merchant,  the 
doctor,  the  preacher,  the  reformer,  as  well  as  the 
poet  and  the  painter.  That  person  is  a  more 
helpful  parent  or  teacher  who  can  become  a  child 
again  and  enter  again  into  the  world  of  make- 
believe  with  the  child.  The  literature  of  stories 
and  heroes  that  assist  this  faculty  is  not  only  com- 
mendable, but  essential  to  normal  development 
a.t  this  time.  Blessed  the  child  who  has  a  grand- 
mother or  grandfather  who  has  passed  out  of  the 
hard  facts  ''that  are  seen"  and  has  come  again 
to  the  land  of  vision  and  will  tell  him  the  won- 
derful excursions  made  by  fancy  in  that  delight- 
ful world  where  all  things  are  as  we  please  to 
have  them. 

SECTION  IV.    LATER  CHILDHOOD. 

In  a  very  real  sense  each  period  prepares  for 
the  succeeding  one.  The  problems  connected  with 
any  period  are  partly  solved  by  the  good  or  bad 
foundation  laid  in  the  preceding  one.  The  diffi- 
culties of  Later  Childhood,  which  extends  from 
the  seventh  to  the  twelfth  year,  in  any  case 


134  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

great,  are  more  easily  mastered  if  wisdom  has 
already  guided  the  hand  of  the  parent  up  to  this 
point.  We  are  always  reaping  what  we  have  al- 
ready sown.  So  emphatic  is  this  truth  that  if  a 
child's  character-direction  is  now  to  be  under- 
taken for  the  first  time,  it  would  be  a  bold  prophet 
that  would  announce  the  probability  of  success. 
We  will  assume  that  there  is  simply  to  be  the 
continuance  of  good  work  already  begun.  In  this 
case  there  will  be  no  sharp  corner  to  be  turned. 
The  changes  to  be  noted  will  not  transpire  some 
bright  morning,  making  that  day's  task  greatly 
different  from  what  it  was  the  day  before.  Never- 
theless the  changes  are  real,  and  one  must  be 
prepared  for  them  and  be  able  to  discern  at  last 
when  they  have  arrived,  even  though  they  have 
approached  by  imperceptible  increments. 

Former  lines  of  activity  still  continue;  some 
to  be  intensified;  some  to  dimmish  gradually; 
others  are  introduced  that  are  more  or  less  new. 
Physically  this  is  a  period  of  slow  growth,  but 
the  health  is  good  and  the  vigor  strong,  except- 
ing that  at  thei  age  of  eight  or  nine  the  child  is 
easily  fatigued.  There  is  great  increase  in  man- 
ual dexterity,  and  corresponding  to  it  the  sense 
of  utility  has  grown.  "What  can  you  do  with 
it!"  "What 's  it  good  for?"  are  frequent  ques- 
tions. There  is  an  increase  in  objectivity  of  atti- 
tude as  distinguished  from  the  imaginativeness 
of  the  earlier  period.  Fact  has  more  charm  than 
fiction  now.  The  child  insists  on  reality.  He  will 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        135 

like  a  story  better  if  in  answer  to  his  question 
we  can  insist  that  it  is  true.  ' '  The  wise  teacher 
will  discard  imaginative  illustrations  and  use 
those  drawn  from  history,  biography,  science,  and 
his  own  experience."  Doing  rather  than  dream- 
ing is  his  ideal. 

Now,  if  not  before,  he  spends  much  time  out 
of  doors.  This  tends  to  independence  and  spon- 
taneity of  movement  as  compared  with  the  former 
imitativeness.  This  is  attributable  partly  to  the 
accidents  of  parental  direction  rather  than  to  the 
disappearance  of  the  tendency  to  imitate.  There 
is  plenty  of  action  still,  but  it  is  not  now  the 
mere  release  of  nervous  energy ;  it  is  guided  more 
by  purpose  and  aim.  The  brain  now  attains  its 
full  human  size,  which  may  well  suggest  the  en- 
trance upon  a  new  stage  of  life.  Yet  it  is  a  pe- 
riod comparatively  uninteresting  to  investigators 
and  perhaps  to  people  generally.  Less  is  written 
about  it  than  concerning  Early  Childhood  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Adolescence  on  the  other.  The 
naivete  and  "innocence"  of  childhood  have 
passed;  the  earnestness  of  Adolescence  has  not 
arrived.  The  child  from  seven  to  twelve  must  for 
a  time  be  content  to  be  rather  uninteresting  and 
sit  in  the  shadows  little  observed.  This  is  prob- 
ably less  trying  than  at  some  other  periods;  for 
he  does  not  readily  express  himself  publicly.  He 
is  observing  rather  than  being  observed ;  often  he 
prefers  to  do  this  from  some  seclusion  where  his 
presence  is  not  noticed.  An  effort  to  make  him 


136  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

express  himself  before  others  must  likely  be  based 
on  an  appeal  to  his  vanity  and  may  be  an  injury 
rather  than  a  benefit.  He  is  now  allowing  im- 
pressions to  sink  down  deep  into  his  nature ;  after 
a  while  they  will  come  to  expression.  Selfishness 
now  asserts  itself  very  strongly.  Acquisitiveness 
is  very  active.  These  qualities  make  the  use  of 
rewards  and  punishments  very  effective,  and  for 
that  very  reason  they  may  be  misused  unduly  to 
accentuate  these  natural  tendencies.  It  will  take 
great  tact  to  direct  them  toward  good  develop- 
ments. Honor  rolls,  badges,  buttons,  grades,  and 
rank  are  very  influential.  The  feeling  of  justice 
is  very  strong ;  playing  fair  is  a  standard  of  great 
potency.  Curiosity,  heretofore  a  strong  passion, 
is  now  regnant.  It  is  now  the  time  when  a  boy 
will  shut  himself  up  for  half  a  day  and  take  a 
clock  to  pieces  to  see  how  it  is  made.  This  passion 
for  knowledge  should  be  regarded  as  God's  thirst 
implanted  in  the  soul  to  be  satisfied  to  the  fullest, 
possible  extent.  It  would  be  abortive  to  crush  it ; 
it  is  soul-growth  to  strengthen  it.  However,  it 
may  lead  in  any  moral  or  immoral  direction ;  the 
work  of  the  good  guide  is  to  direct  it  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  higher  and  eternal  life.  Authority 
is  now  naturally  acknowledged.  Previously  he 
may  have  followed  inclination  without  any  recog- 
nition of  its  contradiction  to  the  will  of  another; 
now  he  recognizes  the  two  wills  and,  if  rightly 
directed,  learns  to  submit  his  own  without  wrench 
or  strain  to  his  nature.  The  sense  of  right  and 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        137 

wrong  is  stronger  than  it  was  formerly,  but  yet 
does  not  often  prove  a  determinative  power  of 
decision.  He  still  leans  on  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  others.  This  fact  aids  rather  than  hinders 
in  rendering  obedience  to  others. 

The  social  instinct  is  now  greatly  strength- 
ened. Its  direction  raises  one  of  the  most  difficult 
problems  yet  encountered.  He  is  still  appreci- 
ative of  companionship  in  general;  but  compan- 
ionship of  the  same  sex  and  age  becomes  impera- 
tive. The  "gang"  spirit  now  arises  with  all  its 
indifference  to  every  other  question  except  com- 
panionship. This  is  a  law  of  nature  unrepealable ; 
how  shall  it  be  dealt  with?  We  assume  that  every 
natural  law  may  be  used  in  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  the  child.  Some  parents  respond  to  this 
demand  with  no  thought  of  directing  it  to  the 
higher  nature,  and  let  the  impulse  have  its  wild 
way.  The  boy  at  least  is  turned  loose  to  find  his 
own  *  *  gang, ' '  and  the  problem  of  character  is  sur- 
rendered. The  unresisting  response  to  this  wild 
demand  is  no  more  rational  than  it  would  have 
been  to  give  way  before  the  wild  striving  of  any 
other  natural  impulse.  The  impulse  means  com- 
panionship. The  problem  is  to  provide  such  as 
will  be  helpful  and  not  ruinous.  Parents  them- 
selves may  unbend  and  become  children  with  their 
children,  supplying  at  once  the  yearning  of  the 
child  and  gaining  a  stronger  hold  upon  them.  It 
is  also  the  opportunity  of  re-enforcing  the  re- 
sources of  the  home  from  the  best  of  the  outside 


138  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

world.  Such,  companions  as  would  help  in  the 
character  problem  may  be  invited  into  the  home. 
The  companionship  of  life  through  literature  is 
suggested  by  the  need.  Inquiry  will  open  up  a 
field  of  influence  from  this  source  that  is  almost 
compelling.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no  child 
so  difficult  as  the  one  that  is  seclusive,  individual, 
unsocial.  One  can  not  steer  a  ship  that  is  stand- 
ing still.  One  can  not  guide  a  life  that  moves  not. 
This  social  impulse  is  the  great  danger  and  the 
great  opportunity.  It  is  the  period  of  hero-wor- 
ship. This  element  may  enable  one  to  hold  in 
check  and  direct  other  activities  not  so  directly 
noble  or  easily  controlled. 

This  is  the  period  when  the  child  starts  to 
school.  This  event  renders  the  problem  very  com- 
plex. Of  our  public  school  system  we  are  justly 
proud  as  being,  all  things  considered,  the  highest 
mark  of  our  civilization.  Otir  public  school  teach- 
ers rank  far  above  the  average  of  our  people  in 
intelligence  and  morals.  To  mention  school  life 
as  intensifying  the  difficulties  of  child-culture 
above  any  one  factor  yet  encountered,  is  not  to 
speak  slightingly  of  these.  But  the  school  neu- 
tralizes the  distinctive  features  of  the  home  to  a 
considerable  degree.  It  is  a  leveler.  Into  it  go 
the  influences  of  all  the  homes  of  the  community, 
and  some  of  them  are  careless  and  indifferent  to 
a  degree  that  renders  the  children  from  them  a 
moral  infection.  These  homes  have  none  of  the 
ideals  for  which  we  are  pleading;  crime  and  filth 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        139 

and  moral  shame  have  no  opposition,  but  are 
yielded  to  under  the  slightest  occasion.  The  chil- 
dren from  such  homes  array  their  authority  and 
influence  against  all  the  rules  and  standards  of 
the  homes  that  seek  in  the  wisest  way  to  develop 
virtue  and  high  character.  Your  little  seven-year- 
old  is  to  be  submitted  to  this  moral  blast  when 
you  are  not  there  to  protect  or  to  neutralize. 
Surely  that  presents  conditions  of  an  uncertain 
issue  if  not  of  an  unfair  struggle.  It  would  lead 
us  wide  afield  to  discuss  it,  but  the  only  means 
of  combating  that  influence,  apart  from  aiding  the 
school  teacher,  is  to  join  with  others  in  the  effort 
to  uplift  that  degraded  home.  Its  existence  is  a 
menace  to  your  child  as  well  as  to  the  destiny 
of  the  child  that  comes  from  it.  Under  certain 
circumstances  it  might  be  duty  to  refuse  to  send 
your  own  child  to  the  school  if  the  danger  were 
imminent  and  too  great  for  a  child  to  meet  with- 
out almost  certain  destruction.  The  State  has 
no  more  right  to  harbor  a  moral  infection  in  the 
school  than  it  has  a  physical  one. 

During  this  period,  if  ever,  the  church-going 
habit  must  be  established.  Differences  of  view 
might  be  encountered,  and  some  reasonable,  if  not 
compelling,  objections  given  for  its  neglect 
hitherto.  But  all  subterfuges  should  now  be  swept 
aside.  Those  who  believe  that  the  Church  has  a 
mission,  which  can  be  accomplished  only  for  those 
who  attend  its  services,  must  now  endeavor  to  es- 
tablish a  love  for  and  a  habit  of  Church  attend- 


140  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

ance.  Neglect  up  to  this  hour  may  have  been  a 
mistake ;  further  neglect  is  fatal.  The  child  that 
neglects  church  attendance  up  till  twelve  years 
of  age,  barring  spiritual  accidents,  will  join  that 
large  crowd  from  our  Christian  homes  who  never 
become  Christians.  The  feeling  of  need  of  the 
Church  is  a  childhood  growth ;  if  then  suppressed, 
there  is  no  natural  period  for  its  development. 

There  is  no  development  of  this  period  more 
burdened  with  destiny  than  that  of  the  memory. 
Memory  was  an  early  activity,  but  it  was  not  re- 
tentive. It  was  sufficient  for  the  personality- 
formation  of  that  passing  time;  but  it  did  not 
bridge  the  years  of  childhood  and  maturity.  The 
bonds  of  association  in  an  infant's  memory  are 
like  ropes  of  sand ;  unless  continually  rebuilt,  they 
fall  away.  But  our  present  period  is  the  ' l  Golden 
Memory  Period."  "The  physical  side  of  mem- 
ory is  most  interesting.  On  the  covering  of  the 
brain,  each  in  its  own  place,  the  images  or  im- 
pression brought  in  by  the  senses  and  the  activ- 
ity are  registered.  So  sensitive  and  so  suscep- 
tible are  the  brain  cells  during  childhood  that 
these  impressions  are  received  as  clay  receives 
the  touch  of  the  sculptor's  finger,  and  under  right 
conditions  they  are  ineffaceable.  When  the  soul 
acts  upon  these  images  they  live  again,  and  we 
say,  'We  remember.'  (Mrs.  Lamoreaux:  "The 
Unfolding  Life,"  69.) 

So  to  speak,  the  brain  cells  are  not  preoccupied 
now,  and  they  may  receive  impressions  which 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        141 

shall  have  right  of  way  for  all  future  life.  It  is 
the  ideal  time  to  store  the  mind  with  all  kinds  of 
mental  wealth  in  literature — poetry,  the  Bible, 
hymns  containing  the  best  truths  of  life  and  spirit. 
And  then,  how  important  to  store  the  memory 
from  the  life  itself  with  impressions  that  will  be 
mental  wealth  when  recalled.  Memory  has  to  do 
with  that  strange  something  or  nothing  which  we 
call  time.  It  is  a  very  elusive  thing.  We  some- 
times call  it  a  stream ;  and  yet  future  time  is  non- 
existent; past  time  is  non-existent;  present  time 
as  soon  as  it  exists  becomes  past  time,  and  hence 
vanishes.  Yet  with  this  vanishing  nothingness 
we  build  the  most  precious  things  of  consciousness 
or  destiny.  The  bridge  that  spans  the  present 
and  the  future  from  this  end  is  called  Life ;  from 
that  end  is  called  Memory.  As  life,  it  is  short; 
as  memory,  it  is  long.  Its  pleasure  as  memory 
can  only  be  determined  by  its  character  as  life. 
Now  we  can  arrange  it  for  our  child  to  be  either 
pleasure  or  pain;  then,  it  must  be  what  it  has 
been.  The  pleasures  of  memory  depend  not  upon 
itself,  but  upon  the  nature  of  past  deeds.  It  is 
impartial ;  it  brings  back  all  of  the  past,  whether 
of  joy  or  misery.  The  wealth  of  all  after-years, 
through  the  channel  of  memory,  is  potentially  in 
the  hands  of  parents  now.  Cares  will  come  after 
a  while;  sorrows  will  sink  their  pangs  deep  into 
the  nature.  What  an  opportunity  now  to  sow 
deep  the  sunshine  of  life,  that,  come  what  will, 
can  not  be  entirely  effaced! 


142  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

SECTION  V.    IN  THE  YEAES  THAT  FOLLOW. 

We  have  now  followed  the  child  as  far  as  our 
purpose  requires.  There  yet  remains  the  period 
of  Adolescence;  but  it  belongs  rather  to  youth 
than  to  childhood.  It  has  received  much  attention 
from  investigators,  and  literature  upon  it  is  abun- 
dant. It  presents  opportunities  for  revolution  of 
character,  while  we  have  traced  only  normal  evo- 
lution. 

If  the  proper  attention  has  thus  far  been  given 
to  the  child,  he  is  now  well  prepared  for  entrance 
upon  this  peculiar  "storm  and  stress"  period. 
He  will  have  unusual  crises — physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual — through  which  he  must  pass,  which 
will  require  the  greatest  attention  and  care  from 
his  spirit-guardians.  But  with  a  good  foundation 
laid,  there  is  every  ground  of  expectation  that 
these  years  will  be  safely  passed,  and  the  youth 
emerge  into  mature  life  with  an  equipment  that 
is  a  guarantee  of  moral  success. 

The  child,  as  we  have  followed  him,  is  equipped 
at  twelve  years  of  age  with  a  strong  body,  which 
is  now  about  to  enter  upon  a  period  of  growth 
more  rapid  than  he  has  ever  before  known.  He 
has  developed  a  moral  sense  which  is  a  capable 
guide  in  situations  where  he  must  act  alone  and 
without  consultation,  as  they  become  necessary. 
He  has  learned  respect  for  and  obedience  to  his 
earthly  parents,  and  they  have  made  themselves 
a  symbol  of  the  Heavenly  Father,  whom  he  has 


PERIODS  OF  DEVELOPMENT        143 

come  to  know  through  this  means  and  the  ever- 
present  and  ever-active  influence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  uses  these  symbols  and  teachings  of 
earthly  guardian-spirits  to  make  known  the  in- 
visible God  and  His  purposes  for  men.  We  have 
no  sure  ground  of  confidence  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
performs  this  office  in  the  absence  of  this  human 
teaching.  The  spirit  of  obedience  toward  the  par- 
ents has  in  it  the  elements  and  essential  nature  of 
yielding  to  the  Higher  Spirit,  provided  those  par- 
ents have  recognized  their  true  office  and  relation 
to  God  and  the  child.  The  tastes  of  the  character 
have  been  formed  on  a  high  plane  and  will  not 
respond  to  appeals  from  lower  levels.  The  feel- 
ings of  the  nature  have  been  trained  to  be  active 
in  lines  of  sympathy  and  kindness.  The  control 
of  the  nature,  both  of  the  animal  and  rational,  has 
been  long  disciplined  and  is  now  comparatively 
able.  Virtuous  habits  have  been  formed  which 
will  steady  him  in  trying  hours  when  the  spon- 
taneous moral  energy  of  the  moment  would  not 
be  sufficient.  The  child  enters  a  world  that  is  not 
"a  friend  to  grace"  indeed,  where  temptations 
are  strong,  and  streams  of  social  influence  are 
against  the  ideals  that  have  been  implanted.  But 
that  world  has  no  dominant  ally  within,  although 
it  will  always  seek  an  alliance  with  his  animal 
nature.  That  physical  nature,  however,  has  also 
learned  how  to  obey.  It  has  been  subjected  to  a 
strong  control  and  to  habits  the  bonds  of  which 
it  can  not  of  itself  break.  It  can  overcome  only 


144  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

by  some  subjugation  of  the  tastes  and  feelings, 
some  tumultuous  momentary  onslaught,  which 
may,  indeed,  secure  a  momentary  victory;  but 
even  then  through  shame  and  contrition  the  usual 
and  normal  moral  status  may  be  re-established. 
Character  has  an  inertia  such  that  it  does  not 
radically  and  permanently  change  in  a  moment. 
This  law  is  an  impediment  to  sudden  reforma- 
tion; but  it  is  also  the  bulwark  of  the  virtuous 
against  deformation. 

That  strange  and  unscientific  factor  called 
freedom  of  choice  has  not  been  nullified,  and  we 
therefore  are  unable  to  predict  invariably  what 
a  soul  will  do.  Some  allowances  have  always  to 
be  made  for  this  unpredictable  element.  Never- 
theless there  are  laws  of  spirit-formation  which 
we  may  investigate  and  whose  working  we  may 
observe;  on  the  outcome  of  these  we  may  rely  in 
the  general  results  of  life.  The  parent  who  has 
wisely  obeyed  these  laws  may  confidently  depend 
upon  expected  results,  and  in  case  of  any  tem- 
porary disappointment  may  with  good  conscience 
ask  the  special  assistance  of  society  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  of  God  to  confer  unusual  grace  for  what 
seems  an  unusual  and  humanly  unavoidable  re- 
sult. 


CHAPTEE  IX 

THE  MORAL  SENSE 

I  THINK  we  must  say  that  the  religious  nature  of 
the  child  is  neutral  until  the  dawning  of  the  sense 
of  ought,  or  of  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
Even  then  it  is  premature  to  think  of  him  as  a 
complete  spiritual  being.  The  time  of  the  dawn- 
ing of  this  moral  sense  is  of  very  great  interest 
and  importance.  Our  reproaches  and  punish- 
ments must  be  adjusted  to  it.  Stanley  Hall  says : 
"For  children  all  offenses  are  simply  forbidden 
things,  and  the  distinction  between  what  is  wrong 
or  forbidden  and  what  is  criminal,  and  the  per- 
spective that  differentiates  between  different 
crimes,  comes  late,  but  moral  comes  even  later 
than  intellectual  maturity."  (" Adolescence,"  I, 
403.) 

I  know  a  little  fellow  who  is  sometimes  caught 
doing  what  he  has  been  forbidden  to  do.  He  is 
seventeen  months  old.  When  thus  detected  he  will 
be  found  with  his  hands  behind  him,  a  picture  of 
innocence.  This  presents  a  curious  problem.  Has 
he  a  conscience  which  he  is  disobeying?  If  not, 
why  does  he  hide  his  action?  I  am  inclined  to 
answer:  He  has  as  yet  no  sense  of  right  and 
wrong.  His  action,  which  seems  so  much  like 
depravity,  has  in  it  no  moral  quality.  The  effort 

10  145 


146  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

to  hide  his  action  grows  out  of  the  knowledge  that 
it  has  been  forbidden,  and  the  doing  of  forbidden 
things  is  associated  with  punishment.  Professor 
Major  in  his  observation  of  his  own  child  noted 
that  the  little  fellow  had  many  devices  for  getting 
away  his  little  brother 's  playthings  from  him.  It 
looked  much  like  selfishness,  but  probably  was 
not;  for  he  was  quite  willing  to  let  his  brother 
have  his  own  playthings.  It  was  action  which 
his  opening  powers  suggested,  that  was  not  yet 
inhibited  by  the  higher  element,  as  yet  undevel- 
oped, of  unselfish  or  altruistic  action.  His  own 
testimony  concerning  the  child  at  this  age  is,  "I 
have  never  seen  a  single  trait  which  even  the  '  un- 
embarrassed scientist'  would  call  vicious."  Some 
day  there  must  come  from  within  a  feeling  that 
it  is  wrong  to  do  wrong.  At  about  the  age  of 
six  or  seven  years  the  child  acquires  the  sense  of 
the  conventional,  which  is  the  idea  of  the  proper 
or  a  social  standard.  This  looks  very  much  like 
the  beginnings  of  the  sense  of  ought  as  controlled 
by  others,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  it  to  outward 
influence.  The  conventional  may  easily  pass  into 
the  obligatory.  ''With  the  beginnings  of  this  con- 
sciousness the  symbolic  bent  of  the  mind  begins 
to  yield  a  place  to  the  higher  and  more  conscious 
form  of  intellectual  and  moral  activity."  (W.  T. 
Harris.)  As  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  con- 
science there  is  much  difference  of  opinion  among 
thoughtful  writers.  When  one  accepts  the  point 
of  view  of  Divine  Immanence,  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  distinguish  the  innate  from  the  extra-personal. 


THE  MORAL  SENSE  147 

But  speaking  as  a  religionist,  we  love  to  think 
of  it  as  God's  voice  and  man's  voice — God's  voice 
in  man's  voice,  and  adopt  the  language  of  Kant. 
He  says : ' '  There  are  two  things  that  fill  my  mind, 
the  oftener  and  longer  I  dwell  upon  them,  with 
ever-fresh  and  ever-growing  admiration  and  awe : 
the  starry  heavens  above  me  and  the  moral  law 
within  me.  Neither  is  veiled  in  mystery  or  lost 
in  immensity  so  that  I  need  to  seek  them  beyond 
the  sphere  of  vision  and  merely  surmise  that  they 
are  there.  I  see  them  before  me  and  link  them 
immediately  with  the  consciousness  of  my  exist- 
ence. .  .  .  The  second  begins  from  my  invisible 
self,  my  personality,  and  exhibits  me  in  a  world 
which  has  true  infinity,  but  which  is  traceable  only 
by  the  understanding."  (Eucken:  "Problem  of 
Human  Life,"  445.)  Goethe  must  have  had  a 
similar  faculty  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of  that 
sentiment  "  which  none  brings  with  him  into  the 
world,  but  on  which  it  entirely  depends  whether 
or  not  a  man  shall  be  in  all  respects  a  man — the 
sentiment  of  reverence."  (do.,  474.)  But,  how- 
ever mysterious  its  origin  or  inexplicable  its  na- 
ture, the  conscience  never  speaks  more  authori- 
tatively than  in  the  first  years  after  its  manifes- 
tation. W.  E.  Gladstone  has  told  a  beautiful  story 
of  it  when  it  spoke  to  him  as  a  stranger  whom 
he  did  not  recognize.  It  was  when  he  was  a  lit- 
tle boy  in  his  fourth  year.  He  lifted  a  stick  to 
kill  a  tortoise.  ' '  But  all  at  once, ' '  he  says,  * '  some- 
thing checked  my  arm,  and  at  once  a  voice  within 
me  said,  clear  and  loud,  'It  is  wrong.'  I  held 


148  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

my  uplifted  stick  in  wonder  at  the  new  emotion — 
the  consciousness  of  an  involuntary  but  inward 
restraint  upon  my  actions — till  the  tortoise  van- 
ished from  my  sight.  I  hastened  home  and  told 
the  tale  to  my  mother,  and  asked  what  it  was 
that  told  me  it  was  wrong.  She  wiped  a  tear 
from  her  eye  with  her  apron  and,  taking  me  up 
in  her  arms,  said:  'Some  men  call  it  conscience, 
but  I  prefer  to  call  it  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man.  If  you  listen  and  obey  it,  then  it  will 
speak  clearer  and  clearer,  and  always  guide  you 
right ;  but  if  you  turn  a  deaf  ear  or  disobey,  then 
it  will  fade  out  little  by  little  and  leave  you  all 
in  the  dark  without  a  guide.  Your  life  depends 
upon  this  voice.'  Then  she  went  her  way  about 
her  affairs,  but  no  event  of  my  life  made  a  more 
deep  and  lasting  impression  upon  me."  This 
voice  of  God  may  at  first  speak  only  the  things 
that  are  permitted;  it  may  associate  itself  with 
the  things  that  cause  no  pain;  there  may  be  pri- 
marily and  even  permanently  some  confusion,  but 
its  imperative  is  unmistakable;  something  in  it 
will  be  heard  above  the  din  and  clamor  of  earthly 
voices.  Macbeth  is  not  untrue  to  life  when  he 
asks: 

Whence  is  that  knocking? 

How  is  't  with  me  when  every  noise  appalls  me? 

What  hands  are  here?    Ha !  they  pluck  out  my  eyes. 

Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 

Clean  from  my  hands?    No ;  this  my  hand  will  rather 

The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine, 

Making  the  green  one  red.  (Macbeth,  act  ii,  sc.  2.) 


THE  MORAL  SENSE  149 

It  is  thought  by  some  that  this  moral  faculty 
is  an  imitative  function  and  has  its  origination 
in  obedience.  The  child  first  feels  the  compulsion 
of  command  from  his  parents  and  from  that  gains 
the  idea  of  obedience.  This  becomes  a  well-fixed 
attitude  in  his  relation  to  them.  But  he  will  after 
awhile  observe  that  they  too  are  obedient.  They 
sometimes  say  that  they  must  do  things  or  must 
not  do  things  which  they  do  not  want  to  do  or  do 
want  to  do.  In  the  parents  the  child  notes — rather 
confusedly,  of  course,  though  more  clearly  when 
oft  repeated — that  the  parents  are  obeying  some 
unseen  source  of  obligation.  They  say:  We  must; 
we  must  not.  We  ought ;  we  ought  not.  An  un- 
seen authority  is  felt  by  them  whom  they  obey. 
These  instances  of  obligation  come  to  be  reduced 
to  rule  or  principle,  and  after  years  the  child  has 
been  impressed  with  a  law  of  obligation  that  is 
different  from  the  authority  of  his  parents.  It  is 
very  probable  that  this  sense  of  moral  obligation 
would  be  very  seriously  impaired  where  the  par- 
ents act  capriciously,  always  as  they  pleased,  and 
were  not  themselves  obedient  to  a  Power  not  them- 
selves. 

Another  root  of  this  same  origination  is  thus 
stated  by  Baldwin : '  *  Suppose  a  boy  who  has  once 
obeyed  a  command  to  let  an  apple  alone,  coming 
to  confront  the  apple  again  when  there  is  no  one 
present  to  make  him  obey.  There  is  his  private, 
greedy,  habitual  self,  eying  the  apple;  there  is 
also  the  spontaneously  suggestible,  accommodat- 


150  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

ing,  imitating  self  over  against  it,  mildly  prompt- 
ing him  to  do  as  his  father  said  and  let  the  apple 
alone ;  and  there  is — or  would  be,  if  the  obedience 
had  taught  him  no  new  thought  of  self — the  quick 
victory  of  the  former.  But  now  a  lesson  has  been 
learned.  There  arises  a  thought  of  one  who 
obeys,  who  has  no  struggle  in  carrying  out  the 
behest  of  the  father.  This  may  be  vague;  his 
habit  may  be  yet  weak  in  the  absence  of  persons 
and  penalties,  but  it  is  there,  however  weak.  And 
it  is  no  longer  the  faint  imitation  of  an  obedient 
self  which  he  does  not  understand.  It  carries 
within  it,  it  is  true,  all  the  struggle  of  the  first 
obedience,  all  the  painful  protests  of  the  private 
greedy  self,  all  the  smoke  of  the  earlier  battle- 
field. But  while  he  hesitates  it  is  not  now  merely 
the  balance  of  the  old  forces  that  makes  him 
hesitate;  it  is  the  sense  of  the  new,  better,  obe- 
dient self  hovering  before  him.  A  few  such 
fights,  and  he  begins  to  grow  accustomed  to  the 
presence  of  something  in  him  which  represents 
his  father,  mother,  or  in  general  the  law  giving 
personality."  ("Social  and  Ethical  Interpreta- 
tions," 54.)  The  remaining  step  to  be  taken  is  to 
eject  this  representative  of  authority  into  all 
others  of  the  family  and  all  others  generally. 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  conscience  may 
shock  those  who  have  regarded  it  as  a  purely 
extra-natural  production.  But  it  need  not  disturb 
our  view  that  it  is  God's  voice,  however  unsettling 
it  may  be  to  its  sometimes  supposed  infallibility. 


THE  MORAL  SENSE  151 

We  are  apt  to  credit  the  doing  of  those  things  to 
God,  the  method  of  doing  of  which  is  hidden  from 
our  view.  Then  some  day,  when  we  look  through 
a  little  glass  and  discover  God  in  the  doing  of  it, 
our  first  exclamation  is,  0,  it  was  not  God,  after 
all,  who  did  it;  it  was  somebody  or  something 
else!  But  this  second  thought  is  our  blunder. 
God  does  it  just  the  same  when  He  puts  a  parent 
at  the  heart  of  the  task,  and  through  them  accom- 
plishes His  purpose.  May  it  exalt  our  view  of 
parenthood  when  we  see  that  they  are  vitally  con- 
nected with  this  problem,  and  in  their  absence  it 
is  never  well  done ;  nor  is  it  well  done  when  they, 
careless  of  their  task,  do  not  recognize  that  they 
are  in  the  place  of  God  to  their  child. 

What  particular  actions  are  wrong  will  be  de- 
termined by  the  commandments  from  his  parents 
until  the  time  when  he  may  have  an  understand- 
ing of  the  Higher  Parent.  Then  His  command- 
ments will  also  be  regarded  as  the  content  of 
moral  conduct.* 

The  dawning  of  this  spiritual  sense  is  com- 
paratively early,  though  no  fixed  age  can  be 
named  that  will  hold  for  all  children.  Some  chil- 
dren have  it  as  early  as  four  years ;  others  as  late 
as  seven;  others  possibly  later.  If  we  should 

*  "Poor  soul,  here  for  so  little,  cast  among  so  many  hardships,  filled  with  desires 
so  incommensurate,  and  so  inconsistent,  savagely  surrounded,  savagely  descended,  ir- 
redeemably condemned  to  prey  upon  his  fellows'  lives;  who  should  have  blamed  him 
had  he  been  of  a  piece  with  his  destiny?  To  touch  the  heart  of  his  mystery,  we  find  in 
him  one  thought  strange  to  the  point  of  lunacy;  the  thought  of  duty;  the  thought  of 
something  owing  to  himself,  to  his  neighbor,  to  his  God;  an  ideal  of  decency  to  which  he 
would  rise,  if  it  were  possible;  a  limit  of  shame,  below  which  if  it  were  possible  he  will 
not  stoop." — (R.  L.  Stevenson;  "Pulvis  et  Umbra,"  quoted  by  TylerO 


152  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

name  six  years,  we  would  find  it  accompanied  with 
marked  physiological  changes :  it  is  the  period  of 
the  second  dentition;  the  brain  has  achieved  its 
adult  size  and  weight ;  now  is  the  time  of  reduced 
growth,  and  increased  activity  and  power  to  re- 
sist both  disease  and  fatigue.  (Hall:  "Adoles- 
cence," II,  451.)  There  is  no  other  such  marked 
year  between  the  third  year  and  puberty. 

J.  E.  Street,  of  Clark  University,  conducted 
an  examination  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-three 
persons,  from  which  he  drew  the  conclusion: 
"There  was  nothing  to  show  that  conscience 
played  any  great  factor  in  life  before  the  age  of 
nine,  and  very  little  mention  was  made  of  it  be- 
fore thirteen.  The  cases,  however,  are  altogether 
too  few  to  make  any  generalized  conclusion  con- 
cerning the  age  at  which  conscience  becomes  a 
potent  element  in  the  individual.  Yet  it  may  be 
premised  that  it  does  not  reveal  its  existence  at 
as  early  an  age  as  many  would  believe.  The 
writer  knows  a  child  in  whom  it  was  abnormally 
developed  at  the  age  of  three.  Impulse  governs 
most  of  the  activities  of  early  childhood."  (A. 
MacDonald:  "Experimental  Child  Study,"  1339.) 

When  we  reflect  that  brain  cells  are  not  suffi- 
ciently formed  for  purposes  of  intellectuality  un- 
til about  the  sixth  year,  and  that  conscience  should 
follow  reflection,  we  must  not  expect  conscience 
to  be  a  factor  before  that  age,  and  then  only  in 
its  germinal  form.  As  to  what  things  a  child's 


THE  MORAL  SENSE  153 

conscience  shall  say,  we  must  know  what  has  been 
taught  by  its  parents  and  teachers. 

MacDonald  calls  attention  to  another  impor- 
tant point  when  he  says:  " Moral  training  is  not 
the  establishment  of  mere  moral  habits,  as  the 
ethical  people  advocate,  but  is  the  unfolding  and 
widening  of  the  deeper  instincts,  particularly  the 
emotions,  and  has  its  roots  in  the  religious  senti- 
ments that  so  early  pervade  child-life.  .  .  .  The 
parent  stands  in  such  relation  to  the  child  as  to 
enable  him  to  seize  upon  the  deed  germ  and  so 
to  nourish  it  that  it  will  produce  the  beautiful 
plant  of  a  pure,  noble  character." 

This  conception  of  the  conscience  assumes  (1) 
a  primal  instinct  that  may  be  unfolded  in  child- 
hood. This  is  not  a  moral  endowment,  implying 
merit  or  demerit,  but  an  endowment  of  the  nature, 
which  when  exercised  opens  in  moral  character. 
(2)  The  control  of  the  action  of  the  child  directs 
the  unfolding  instinct  or  emotional  power  to  the 
good  or  the  evil  character.  The  conscience  fac- 
ulty may  have  no  content,  but  it  does  have  a  cer- 
tain texture  which  forms  a  basis  of  moral  re- 
action from  the  influences  which  shall  come  upon 
it  after  a  while. 

The  important  point  is:  not  that  we  should 
adopt  some  time  for  the  application  of  a  religious 
formula  and  judgment  concerning  its  spiritual 
relation  to  God,  but  that  we  should  regard  the 
moral  awakening,  whenever  it  comes,  as  a  phe- 


154  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

nomenon  realized  and  treat  the  child  accordingly. 
Just  as  we  observe  the  awakening  of  self-con- 
sciousness and  the  faculty  of  reasoning,  so  we 
should  observe  the  awakening  of  the  moral  fac- 
ulty and  seek  at  that  point  to  have  it  choose  right- 
eousness as  such.  That  choice  for  the  child  is 
tantamount  to  the  choosing  of  God.  It  has  all  the 
significance  for  the  spiritual  relation  to  God  for 
the  child  that  conversion  has  in  riper  years  for 
the  adult.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  a  child  can 
at  that  time  make  a  choice  that  carries  it  un- 
changingly into  the  future,  as  the  adult  may.  The 
child's  nature  requires  that  this  choice  be  con- 
firmed by  every  succeeding  choice.  But  the  choice 
for  the  moment  contains  the  child's  religious  re- 
lation for  the  moment.  If  that  choice  is  confirmed 
ever  afterwards,  the  child  is  an  acceptable  child 
of  God ;  if  a  contrary  choice  is  subsequently  made, 
it  will  need  to  seek  forgiveness,  just  as  the  adult 
does  when  he  falls  from  grace.  This  moral  con- 
dition has  the  childish  element  of  instability;  but 
it  has  no  taint  of  sin  upon  it.  The  instability 
suggests  the  child's  moral  dependence  upon  par- 
ents and  teachers.  It  can  not  live  its  moral  life 
alone  any  more  than  it  can  live  its  physical  life 
alone.  The  parent  is  the  child's  moral  supple- 
ment 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  EKA  OF  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION 

THERE  are  other  elements  than  the  dawn  of  the 
moral  sense  that  enter  into  the  question,  When 
is  the  ideal  time  for  religious  instruction?  The 
period  for  the  formation  of  habits  is  from  the 
third  to  the  seventh  year.  Character,  from  one 
point  of  view,  is  the  by-product  of  actions,  and 
habitual  actions  thus  are  of  most  intense  impor- 
tance. Perhaps  it  was  from  some  such  knowledge 
as  this  that  caused  that  student  of  this  question, 
the  most  profound  yet  produced  in  America,  Hor- 
ace Bushnell,  to  say  that  more  could  be  done  to 
make  or  mar  the  eternal  destiny  of  a  child  be- 
fore three  years  of  age  than  could  be  done  after- 
wards. Eemembering,  then,  the  importance  of 
these  early  years,  and  then  from  six  years  on  to 
thirteen  or  fourteen,  we  have  the  period  of  op- 
portunity for  parent  or  teacher  to  lead  a  soul  to 
Christ.  After  sixteen  we  may  compare  their  res- 
cue to  that  of  the  passengers  wrecked  in  the  ocean, 
clinging  to  planks  and  timbers.  Some  of  them 
will  be  picked  up ;  but  it  all  seems  accidental,  and 
no  rule  can  be  named  as  to  how  it  may  be  accom- 
plished. There  probably  always  has  been  in  the 

155 


156  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

Roman  Catholic  Church  a  scientific  basis  for  the 
teaching  of  religion.  Our  objection  to  that 
Church  can  not  be  so  much  because  of  their  meth-. 
ods  of  instruction  as  to  the  subject  matter  of  their 
teaching.  In  method  they  are  able  to  teach  us 
very  much.  Their  adherents,  even  without  the 
strong  religious  passion  that  a  personal  yielding 
to  Christ  gives,  are  very  tenacious  to  the  faith 
and  practices  of  their  Church. 

The  evangelistic  method  can  not  be  called 
scientific ;  nor  can  it  be  called  ideal.  It  is  greatly 
to  be  commended  as  a  method  to  be  used  with 
adults  who  have  lost  their  opportunity  of  scientific 
instruction.  But  its  continuance  under  present 
conditions  is  losing  to  the  Protestant  Church  two- 
thirds  of  its  children,  and  presents  the  most 
alarming  and  discouraging  view  of  Christianity 
in  the  world.  The  greatest  discouragement  that 
we  face  is  not  in  China,  with  its  unknown  num- 
ber of  millions  to  be  evangelized,  indoctrinated, 
and  converted;  but  rather  the  fact  that  here  in 
America  from  our  Christian  homes  and  Sunday 
schools  sixty  per  cent  of  our  children  never  be- 
come Christian.  When  we  look  at  the  means  nec- 
essary to  hold  them,  the  neglect  that  we  observe 
is  as  significant  as  the  result  which  we  deplore. 
They  are  not  receiving  the  instruction,  during  this 
ideal  period  when  they  might  be  won,  which  is  in 
any  degree  sufficient  to  insure  that  they  will  be- 
come Christians.  They  are  allowed  first  to  be 
lost,  and  then,  when  character's  choice  has  been 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION 

made,  a  belated  and  necessarily  ineffectual  effort 
is  made  to  win  them  back. 

Says  Dr.  David  G.  Downey :  ' '  The  child  holds 
the  future,  and  the  only  way  to  save  the  future 
is  to  save  the  child.  We  can  not  save  the  child 
by  allowing  him  to  go  to  the  devil  in  his  youth- 
hood,  and  then  attempt  by  special  and  spectacu- 
lar methods  to  win  him  back  to  God  in  his  man- 
hood. Our  method  of  approach  to  the  child-heart 
and  mind  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  well-estab- 
lished laws  and  principles  that  govern  the  child's 
growth.  Religious  development  must  be  made 
not  a  matter  of  miracle  and  magic,  but  a  part 
of  the  child's  normal  development,  just  as  nat- 
ural and  normal  as  his  development  physically  or 
mentally.  God  has  ordained  a  right  time  and  a 
right  way  for  developing  a  child's  physical  life. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  chance,  caprice,  or  magic. 
It  is  a  matter  of  care,  feeding,  exercise,  and  en- 
vironment. Every  parent  understands,  and  up 
to  the  measure  of  his  understanding  co-operates 
with  the  divine  law.  God  also  has  ordained  a 
right  time  and  a  right  way  for  developing  the 
child's  mental  life.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  chance, 
caprice,  or  magic.  It  is  simply  a  matter  of  in- 
struction, guidance,  and  teaching  at  the  right 
time.  Every  parent  and  every  teacher  under- 
stands, and  as  far  as  possible  co-operates  with 
the  divine  law.  .  .  .  Let  that  time  pass  unim- 
proved, and  the  child  is  intellectually  lost.  .  .  . 
Has  God  ordained  a  right  time  and  a  right  way 


158  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

for  developing  the  child's  physical  life?  for  de- 
veloping the  child's  mental  life?  and  has  left  his 
spiritual  life  without  plan  or  care — a  matter  of 
chance,  caprice,  magic,  miracle,  or  whim?  As- 
suredly not.  Here  as  elsewhere,  nay,  more,  just 
here  especially  God  has  a  right  time  and  a  right 
way. ' ' 

It  is  probably  not  sufficiently  realized  that 
youth  is  the  great  crime-producing  period.  The 
County  Court  of  Kings,  New  York,  for  the  year 
1908  passed  sentence  on  950  persons  convicted  of 
crime.  Of  these  491  were  under  twenty  years  of 
age  and  283  were  between  twenty-one  and  thirty, 
and  only  176  were  above  thirty  years  of  age.  In 
New  York  State  in  one  year  the  superintendent 
of  instruction  reported  179,000  arrests  of  children 
under  fifteen  years  of  age.  In  France  it  is  noted 
that  during  recent  years  juvenile  depravity  and 
criminality  have  greatly  increased.  They  have 
passed  a  law  that  recognizes  that  every  criminal 
under  eighteen  is  still  a  child,  and  as  such  unfit 
for  prison.  Houses  of  correction  are  established, 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  which  is,  as  far  as 
possible  to  keep  those  convicted  in  touch  with  the 
home,  recognizing  it  as  containing  the  only  suffi- 
cient elements  for  character  formation.  "  Pos- 
sessing as  they  do  the  ear,  the  heart,  and  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  child,  parents  have  it  within  their 
power  to  develop  the  child  into  almost  whatever 
they  may  wish.  Hence  if  they  would  get  back  to 
the  Hebrew  conception  of  the  family,  and  would 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION      159 

devote  themselves  as  diligently  to  the  nurture  of 
their  children  as  they  do  now  to  the  ways  of 
fashionable  and  business  life  or,  better  still,  with 
all  the  solicitousness  that  they  exercise  in  the 
rearing  of  their  horses  and  dogs,  the  problem  of 
the  moral  regeneration  of  the  race  would  be  most 
thoroughly  solved."  (MacDonald,  1342.) 

A  religious  curriculum,  embracing  morning 
and  evening  prayer,  attendance  upon  Sunday 
school  and  Church,  and  daily  instruction  in  the 
religious  life,  would  not  be  too  much  to  withstand 
the  tides  of  opposition  to  Christianity  flowing  all 
about  them  in  our  land.  It  is  probable  that  mod- 
ern times  present  many  more  allurements  away 
from  the  Christian  life  than  did  several  centuries 
ago.  Yet  we  are  far  from  equaling  some  of  the 
Christians  of  those  more  simple  times.  The  spir- 
itual descendants  of  John  Huss  showed  a  care- 
fulness and  zeal  which  is  not  found  in  modern 
Church  customs.  The  important  connection  be- 
tween the  Church  and  the  home  was  thoroughly 
recognized.  The  membership  of  the  congregation 
was  divided  into  three  sections :  the  beginners,  the 
advanced,  and  the  perfected.  The  first  section 
was  the  children,  who  received  separate  instruc- 
tion in  the  Bible.  The  instruction  received  in  the 
Church  was  supplementary  to  and  a  review  of 
that  which  was  carried  on  in  the  home.  Officers 
of  the  Church  visited  the  homes  regularly  to  see 
that  the  plan  of  home  instruction  was  carried  out, 
and  reported  the  conditions  to  the  pastor.  * i  This 


160  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

home  training  consisted  in  a  personal  examina- 
tion of  the  children  by  the  father,  usually  during 
or  after  the  midday  meal,  to  discover  what  they 
remembered,  and  how  much  they  understood  of 
the  religious  teaching  they  had  received,  either 
at  school  or  any  of  the  many  services  of  the  week. 
From  very  few  of  the  Church  services  were  the 
children  excused.  .  .  .  Morning  and  evening 
family  devotions  were  also  conscientiously  kept 
up."  Several  services  were  held  during  the  Sab- 
bath ;  one  of  them  might  overrun  an  hour,  but  the 
afternoon  and  evening  services  were  scrupulously 
held  to  thirty  minutes.  During  special  seasons 
of  the  year  the  lessons  suggested  by  them  were 
carefully  and  impressively  taught.  During  the 
year  the  whole  Bible  was  gone  over  in  outline. 
The  parochial  schools,  which  were  held  during  the 
week,  also  made  the  teaching  of  the  religious  and 
moral  life  of  great  prominence.  In  view  of  this 
careful  training  of  the  children  we  are  better  able 
to  understand  the  profound  impressions  that  the 
Moravians  have  made  upon  the  world. 

Moreover,  an  indispensable  condition  is  that 
children  should  not  be  associated  with  vice  during 
these  early  years.  No  cost  is  too  great  that  they 
may  be  shielded  during  those  years  when  nature 
formed  them  to  imitate  what  they  see.  It  must 
be  frankly  admitted  that  this  world  is  ill-adapted 
for  the  moral  or  even  the  mental  education  of  the 
child.  What  are  the  sights  that  meet  his  eye  as 
he  goes  to  and  from  school?  The  great  posters 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION     161 

on  the  walls  and  the  billboards, portray  a  world 
that  he  is  not  fitted  to  enter.  Evil  persons  of 
adult  years  will  try  to  engage  his  attention  and 
his  interest  in  their  evil  world.  Children  of  his 
own  years  from  the  homes  and  slums  of  vice  en- 
act a  life  on  the  street  that  is  very  suggestive  to 
his  open  mind.  What  comes  to  him  from  the 
newspaper  that  enters  every  home?  Certainly 
very  little  that  is  fitted  for  his  eyes  and  thought- 
pictures  and  stories  of  crime  and  sin.  The  comic 
supplement  to  the  Sunday  newspaper  is  his  espe- 
cial enemy.  It  is  gotten  up  to  catch  his  eye  and 
engage  his  attention,  but  under  the  guidance  of 
no  moral  purpose.  One  writer  has  recently  said 
of  it:  "It  glorifies  the  smart  child,  proficient 
in  monkey  tricks;  the  cheeky,  disrespectful,  and 
irreverent  child,  who  *  guys'  his  elders  and  bet- 
ters; the  libertine  child,  of  silly,  humoring 
parents."  From  the  moral  and  religious  point 
of  view  our  modern  world  is  very  unfriendly 
to  the  child.  He  has  no  defenses  in  himself. 
He  knows  not  his  danger.  Ofttimes  parents  do 
not  comprehend  that  they  are  purposed  to  be  his 
defense  against  moral  invasion  as  really  as  they 
are  against  the  invasion  of  physical  danger  and 
want.  Many  who  pride  themselves  on  the  physical 
provision  which  they  make  for  their  children, 
allow  them  to  suffer  the  merciless  moral  treatment 
of  all  the  sin-traps  of  the  street  and  public  life 
that  surges  around  our  homes,  seeking  for  en- 
trance. In  how  many  instances  are  tender  chil- 
li 


162  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

dren  turned  into  the  street  to  be  the  easy  victims 
of  its  vice  unavoidably  visible !  How  many  homes 
provide  the  instruction  that  we  have  noted  as  the 
minimum  of  necessity?  Certainly  the  percentage 
of  cases  where  these  conditions  are  found  is  not 
as  large  as  the  percentage  of  children  who  be- 
come Christian.  Many  a  child  in  a  nominally 
Christian  home  has  never  heard  his  father's  or 
his  mother's  voice  in  prayer.  One  of  the  most 
precious  memories  and  most  potent  influences  on 
life  is  thus  lost.  God  is  better  to  us  than  our 
plans  and  work.  Those  homes  which  carefully 
train  their  children  with  this  daily  and  painstak- 
ing instruction  secure  the  Christian  character  of 
their  children ;  but  those  which  depend  upon  their 
conversion  through  the  agency  of  evangelistic 
methods  are  losing  them  in  large  masses. 


CHAPTEB  XI 

CHILDREN  'g  BAPTISM 


CHURCH  history  hardly  affords  a  more  striking 
illustration  of  the  conflict  between  an  instinctive 
spiritual  tendency  and  the  barriers  erected  by 
groping  theologians  than  the  manner  in  which  the 
baptism  of  children  has  been  treated  by  the  Chris- 
tian world,  The  New  Testament  is  silent  con- 
cerning it,  and  yet  the  teaching  of  Jesus  has  been 
arrayed  on  both  sides  of  the  conflict.  The  state- 
ment of  John  3:5,  "  Except  one  be  born  of  water 
and  the  Spirit,  he  can  not  see  the  Kingdom  of 
God,'*  seemed  to  shut  children  out  of  the  King- 
dom, their  original  sinfulness  having  been  as- 
sumed. On  the  other  hand,  the  statement,  "of 
such  is  the  Kingdom  of  heaven,"  was  in  direct  op- 
position to  this.  Its  plain  meaning  could  not  be 
evaded;  but  it  could  be  neglected  by  those  who 
could  not  make  it  harmonize  with  their  belief. 
For  the  most  part  the  Church  has  accepted  both 
statements  and  emphasized  both  in  the  most  in- 
harmonious fashion.  The  custom  of  children's 
baptism  probably  had  its  roots  in  Jewish  tradi- 
tions and  practices,  and  the  fear  that  unbaptized 
persons  would  be  excluded  from  the  Kingdom  for- 

163 


164  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

ever,  in  harmony  with  the  well-nigh  unchallenged 
phrase,  extra  ecclesiam  nulla  solus.  It  grew  early 
and  extensively  in  the  early  Church,  and  at  times 
has  held  an  almost  universal  sway. 

It  has  always  been  met,  however,  by  two  or 
more  beliefs  that  seemed  to  make  it  untenable. 
The  first  was  that  baptism  is  for  the  "remission 
of  sins."  If  this  sin  was  original  sin,  of  course 
it  was  logical  for  the  child  to  be  baptized  as  early 
as  possible;  but  if  it  were  for  the  sins  actually 
committed  by  us,  then  it  was  best  to  defer  bap- 
tism to  a  period  as  late  in  life  as  possible.  Or 
if  it  were  for  both  original  and  actual  sins,  as 
many  held,  the  latter  position  is  inevitable.  This 
latter  course  was  recommended  by  many  and  was 
the  one  pursued  by  Constantino  the  Great.  More- 
over, it  was  regarded  peculiarly  sacrilegious  for 
a  baptized  person  to  commit  sin,  while  an  un- 
baptized  person  was  privileged  in  sin.  Augustin 
quotes  the  current  saying,  "Let  him  alone,  let 
him  do  as  he  likes,  for  he  is  yet  unbaptized. ' ' 
("Confessions,"  I,  xi.)  The  other  belief  was 
that  baptism  was  a  sign  of  admission  into  the 
Kingdom,  which  could  be  entered  by  those  only 
who  personally  by  faith  accepted  Jesus  Christ. 
As  this  faith  is  impossible  to  children,  they  could 
not  enter,  and  logic  would  require  that  they  should 
be  refused  baptism,  the  initiatory  rite.  This  atti- 
tude toward  the  subject  has  played  a  much  larger 
role  than  the  other,  and  is  a  very  prevalent  ob- 
stacle to  the  custom  even  to  this  day.  It  has  been 


CHILDREN'S  BAPTISM  165 

met  in  the  history  of  the  subject  by  the  assertion 
of  a  sort  of  vicarious  faith,  or  of  unconscious 
faith  on  the  part  of  the  child.  On  the  one  hand, 
those  who  were  sponsors  for  the  child,  parents 
or  god-parents,  were  supposed  to  be  able  to  ex- 
ercise a  faith  that  was  available  for  him.  On 
the  other  hand,  some  supposed  that  a  sort  of  un- 
conscious faith  was  exercised  by  the  child.  Thus 
Calvin  taught,  "  Infants  may  have  infused  into 
them  a  kind  of  faith  and  knowledge,  though  not 
ours."  This,  however,  as  has  been  pointed  out 
by  Harnack,  was  an  abandonment  of  the  Protes- 
tant view  of  faith,  and  has  not  exercised  so  very 
great  influence  on  the  practice. 

The  High  Church  idea  of  baptism,  which  may 
be  called  baptismal  regeneration,  has  had  a  very 
great  part  in  the  defense  of  this  custom.  It  is 
in  the  realm  of  the  mystical,  if  not  the  magical, 
the  mysterious,  approaching  the  superstitious,  if 
it  does  not  actually  reach  it.  It  tries  to  escape 
the  charge  of  mechanism  in  spiritual  things,  that 
the  sheer  application  of  water  in  itself  works  the 
regeneration  of  the  spiritual  being.  I  will  not 
attempt  to  state  the  form  of  this  disclaimer,  for 
to  me  it  has  no  validity.  To  its  defenders  the 
modus  operandi  becomes  a  matter  of  great  im- 
portance. It  must  be  the  application  of  water, 
and  not  some  other  liquid,  as  milk  or  wine.  Great 
care  must  be  exercised  that  it  be  not  repeated. 
If  in  doubt  about  this,  one  must  preface  the  ad- 
ministration by  the  phrase,  "If  thou  hast  not 


166  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

been  baptized."  As  the  ordinance  works  of  it- 
self, it  is  valid  even  though  it  may  have  been  per- 
formed by  a  heretic,  etc.,  etc.  Innocent  III  held 
that,  as  sin  came  to  infants  without  their  con- 
sciousness, so  they  could  be  freed  from  it  by  the 
power  of  the  sacrament.  In  accordance  with  this 
line  of  reasoning,  he  thought  that  baptism  would 
be  effective  upon  men  asleep  or  mad,  if  they  had 
previously  expressed  a  purpose  of  receiving  it. 
(Vid.  Hastings:  "Encyc.  of  Religion  and  Ethics," 
II,  398.) 

The  Council  of  Trent,  building  its  doctrine 
upon  the  tenet  of  Original  Sin,  made  one  distinc- 
tion of  value;  though  this  distinction,  so  far  as 
I  know,  has  never  been  developed  into  a  clearer 
expression  of  the  normal  human  condition  in 
morals.  Its  teaching  is  thus  represented:  "The 
guilt  of  original  sin  is  removed  in  baptism,  and 
the  regenerate  are  no  longer  sinful  in  the  eyes  of 
God,  though  there  remains  in  them  a  root  of  con- 
cupiscence, which  is  left  for  them  to  struggle 
against.  This  concupiscence  must  not  be  called 
*  sin '  if  by  the  term  it  is  implied  that  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  regenerate  which  can  properly  be 
called  sin.  It  is  sin  only  in  so  far  as  it  comes 
from  sin  and  leads  to  sin."  (do.,  399.)  This 
point,  that  sin  remained  after  baptism,  which  was 
supposed  to  remove  it,  had  caused  much  trouble. 
Some  were  bold  enough  logicians  to  simply  re- 
ject the  fact.  Augustin  held  that  baptism  "means 
the  breaking  down  of  the  sinful  habit,  the  be- 


CHILDREN'S  BAPTISM  167 

stowal  of  a  special  grace  of  resistance,  but  not 
the  entire  removal  of  the  enemy."  Hillary  had 
to  warn  his  readers  against  supposing  that  bap- 
tism would  restore  them  to  the  innocence  of  child- 
hood. Baptism  in  the  second  century  was  re- 
garded as  a  peculiarly  strong  form  of  exorcism. 
"Just  as  the  Ked  Sea  drowned  Pharaoh,  so  bap- 
tism drowns  the  devil  out  of  a  man.'* 

In  general  all  these  teachers  and  Churches, 
which  taught  infant  baptism,  regarded  confirma- 
tion, or  some  other  step  to  be  taken  when  the 
child  came  to  years  of  responsibility,  as  a  neces- 
sity, which  in  effect  is  a  substitute  for  believers' 
baptism. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  a  custom  that  has  been 
defended  by  an  appeal  to  such  absurdities  and 
unfounded  necessities,  by  such  conflicting  argu- 
ments and  disregard  of  personal  history,  should 
fail  of  general  acceptance  and  understanding,  and 
be  assailed  with  such  sarcasm  as  this  custom  has 
met.  And  yet  Christianity  would  be  of  little 
value  if  these  attacks  upon  the  custom  were  in- 
vincible.. If  Christianity  is  not  for  the  child,  then 
one-half  of  the  human  race  are  cut  off  from  its 
benefits  at  a  stroke:  for  one-half  never  grow  up 
to  be  adults.  But  this  is  not  the  worst  aspect  of 
this  opposition ;  it  will  have  only  a  disputed  value 
for  the  other  half.  If  Christianity  is  not  for  the 
child,  it  is  hardly  adjustable  to  normal  humanity, 
and  will  ever  remain  a  little  ' '  lean-to ' '  to  life,  the 
worth-while-ness  of  which  will  be  dubious.  If 


168  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

Christianity  is  normal  to  human  life,  it  must  cover 
the  whole  of  it,  and  especially  that  part  in  which 
character  is  formed.  If  the  child  can  come  to  a 
normal  human  spiritual  stature  without  the  help 
of  the  Church,  the  acceptance  of  Christ  by  the 
adult  is  emphatically  superfluous.  But  to  admit 
that  the  child  may  receive  the  benefits  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  yet  refuse  it  the  ministry  of  this  rite, 
universally  regarded  as  initiatory,  is  an  indefen- 
sible position.  How  can  it  run  the  course,  if  it 
never  enters  upon  it?  We  would  place  the  bap- 
tism of  children  in  a  central  position,  and  at  the 
same  time  divorce  it  from  the  mystical,  irrational, 
unrealizable  ministrations  that  have  been  claimed 
for  it.  Its  benefits  in  plain  sight  are  sufficient  to 
bind  it  upon  us  with  indissoluble  bands.  With 
the  cancellation  of  the  doctrine  of  hereditary  sin 
we  at  a  stroke  get  rid  of  a  mass  of  contradictions 
and  absurdities.  However  the  phrase,  "for  the 
remission  of  sins,"  may  be  interpreted,  it  creates 
more  difficulties  than  it  dissolves  to  say  it  is  either 
for  the  sins  which  we  inherit  from  Adam  or,  so 
far  as  it  is  a  physical  act,  that  it  has  the  least 
effect  in  washing  away  actual  sins.  Biblical  in- 
terpretation is  never  justified  in  creating  more 
difficulties  than  it  finds.  If  Biblical  phrase  is  so 
mysterious  that  we  can  not  penetrate  its  meaning, 
let  it  remain  a  mystery;  but  let  there  be  no  obli- 
gation created  by  the  exegete  that  compels  a  be- 
liever to  accept  what  he  knows  can  not  be  true 
without  the  destruction  of  fundamental  principles 


CHILDREN'S  BAPTISM  169 

in  morals,  and  intellectual  dishonesty  or  suicide. 
There  are  certain  conceptions  of  infant  bap- 
tism that  appear  to  us  as  little  better  than  gross 
superstition  on  the  one  hand,  or  based  on  imag- 
inary necessities  on  the  other.  They  dwell  in  the 
region  of  mystical  relations  and  imaginary  bene- 
fits.  It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  moral  benefit  to 
children,  as  supposed,  in  their  actual  life.  The 
announcement  of  these  views  has  doubtless  done 
much  to  discredit  the  true  benefits  of  baptism. 
Some  speak  of  the  good  children  derive  from  it 
as  coming  to  them  under  the  influence  of  a  cov- 
enant. For  myself,  I  can  not  see  that  the  idea, 
which  seems  to  bind  some  formal  obligation  on 
to  God,  adds  much  to  the  notion  of  His  universal 
love  for  all  His  creatures.  Furthermore,  omitting 
the  idea  of  their  inherent  sinfulness,  and  there 
seems  to  be  no  barrier  to  be  overcome  by  a  com- 
pact to  the  full  display  of  His  love  and  fellowship. 
But  to  those  who  seem  to  see  some  force  in  it 
I  would  quote  the  words  of  F.  D.  Maurice.  "I  am 
deeply  persuaded, ' '  he  says,  * l  that  a  covenant  pre- 
supposes an  actual  relation;  and  therefore  object 
wholly  to  those  phrases  which  speak  of  the  rela- 
tion as  if  it  were  constituted  by  the  covenant." 
("Life,"  I,  209.) 

The  Anabaptists  of  the  sixteenth  century  ' '  in- 
stead of  infant  baptism  had  a  ceremony  in  which 
children  were  consecrated  to  God."  (Lindsay: 
"Reformation,"  II,  435.)  This  seems  to  us  to 
secure  the  central  idea  quite  effectively,  while  it 


170    MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

betrays  a  needless  reservation  of  the  ordinance, 
as  if  it  had  some  ulterior  benefits.  Baptism  of 
infants  can  mean  only  two  things :  First,  a,  recog- 
nition on  the  part  of  others  of  the  right  of  the 
child  in  the  Church.  No  spiritual  benefit  can  come 
to  it  directly  from  the  physical  act  of  applying 
water,  whether  in  this  form  or  that.  The  custom 
of  baptizing  a  child  which  is  about  to  die  is  com- 
parable to  the  heathen  idea  of  salvation  by  some 
utterly  non-moral  influence.  But  so  long  a,s  bap- 
tism is  regarded  as  a  rite  of  entrance  into  the 
Church  it  should  not  be  denied  to  children.  From 
the  beginning  they  are  in  the  invisible  Church, 
and  the  visible  Church  is  making  good  her  claims 
to  a  vital  work  in  the  world  when  she  undertakes 
with  all  zeal  to  have  all  whom  Christ  receives 
enter  by  some  visible  ordinance  into  her  fold. 

But  in  the  second  place,  there  are  some  bene- 
fits to  the  child  of  a  more  dynamic  character. 
They  are  none  the  less  because  they  are  indirect. 
The  baptism  of  the  child  is  an  act  of  the  parents 
by  which  they  acknowledge  the  divine  relation  of 
the  child  to  God  already  established,  the  divine 
origin  of  the  child,  the  divine  ownership  of  the 
child,  and  the  obligation  laid  upon  them  of  se- 
curing to  him  a  divine  destiny.  The  benefits  that 
come  to  him  are  from  the  vividness  and  vitality 
of  these  impressions  upon  the  minds  of  the  par- 
ents. Should  they  be  lacking  entirely,  and  bap- 
tism be  given  through  the  influence  of  some  ficti- 


CHILDREN'S  BAPTISM  171 

tious  ecclesiastical  valuation,  the  benefit  will  be 
nothing.  But  if  these  convictions  are  present  in 
active  form,  then  the  child  will  each  day  receive 
the  benefit  of  that  consecration  which  gave  it  back 
to  God  and  which  abides  in  the  ever-working  vi- 
sion that  this  is  a  holy  child  and  may  not  be  dealt 
with  as  if  it  were  in  the  sole  power  of  the  parents 
to  do  with  as  pleasure  or  caprice  or  unholy  am- 
bition dictate.  Where  this  consecration  is  lacking, 
the  ordinance  is  an  empty  and  meaningless  form; 
its  only  effect  is  to  work  a  delusion. 

Children's  baptism,  then,  demands  certain  con- 
ditions, without  which  it  is  only  an  empty  super- 
stition. If  the  parents  understand  its  nature  and 
its  limitations ;  if  they  will  undertake  to  carry  out 
its  implications ;  if  they  comprehend  that  its  spir- 
itual working  is  vicarious,  coming  to  the  child 
through  them,  then  its  observance  will  be  fraught 
with  the  largest  possible  blessing  and  spiritual 
fruitage.  It  is  but  the  first  act  of  a  program  of 
spiritual  education  and  influence  that,  through  a 
wonderful  and  divine  arrangement,  enables  the 
parents  to  be  in  very  deed  the  father  and  the 
mother  of  the  spiritual  form  of  the  child,  and  not 
merely  the  cause  of  its  physical  structure.  This 
assumes  a  previous  instruction  and  preparation 
that  probably  are  not  usually  given,  but  without 
which  it  will  be  as  profitless  and  mocking  as  it 
is  sacrilegious.  Could  this  be  adequately  under- 
stood we  would  enter  upon  a  period  which  would 


172   MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

not,  as  now,  lose  to  us  seventy-five  per  cent  of  our 
boys  and  a  large  per  cent  of  our  girls  into  the 
non-religious  life.  According  to  our  use  of  it  will 
this  practice  be  the  most  effective  or  the  most 
useless  religious  instrument  of  all  the  ordinances 
of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  XH 

HOW  CAN  A  CHILD  BE  SAVED  ? 

SOME  years  ago  the  writer  was  attending  a  preach- 
ers '  meeting  in  a  Western  city.  The  popular  pas- 
tor of  the  largest  Church  in  the  city  came  into 
the  room  just  as  some  brother  was  announcing 
with  great  confidence  the  opinion  that  no  one 
could  get  into  the  Kingdom  of  God,  or  get  to 
heaven,  without  being  converted.  Our  friend 
heard  the  statement,  and  as  he  swung  into  his 
seat,  called  out,  "That  's  my  sentiment."  The 
discussion  drifted  on  for  half  an  hour,  and  then 
this  pastor  arose,  very  subdued,  and  said  with 
much  feeling  that  he  had  lost  two  children  some 
years  before,  and  he  always  thought  that  they 
had  gone  to  heaven.  "But  if  what  is  said  here 
to-day  be  true,  then  I  do  not  know  where  they 
have  gone."  This  seemed  to  put  a  new  face  on 
the  matter.  If  conversion  is  the  only  door  that 
admits  people  to  heaven,  then  only  those  who 
can  exercise  personal  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  can  be 
saved.  The  question  is  not  so  serious  in  regard 
to  those  who  live  to  mature  years  and  have  the 
chance  of  complying  with  the  conditions  admitting 
to  conversion.  But  it  was  formerly  said  that  one- 

173 


174   MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHII^D 

half  the  human  race  die  before  they  attain  seven 
years,  and  these  are  by  their  situation  shut  out 
from  heaven  forever,  unless  a  future  probation  is 
provided  for  them,  which  last  supposition  is  gen- 
erally unacceptable  to  those  who  stand  for  the 
doctrine  of  conversion.  Some  try  to  relieve  the 
situation  to  a  degree  by  indicating  that  children 
may  be  converted  when  very  young,  suggesting 
cases  of  conversion  even  at  four  years  of  age. 
The  Eev.  E.  P.  Hammond,  recently  translated, 
gives  a  number  of  instances  of  children  converted 
when  four  years  of  age,  and  one  at  the  extremely 
early  age  of  two  and  a  half.  If  these  cases  could 
be  multiplied  manifold  there  would  still  remain  a 
great  question  in  our  minds  concerning  those  not 
thus  reached. 

Many  inquiries  arise  in  our  minds  concerning 
this  question  of  child-conversion.  They  have  such 
life-interest  to  us  all  that  no  one  will  feel  like 
speaking  lightly  of  the  solution  that  another  may 
present.  Psychologists  have  serious  misgivings 
concerning  the  procedure  of  these  early  conver- 
sions. They  seem  to  violate  the  very  nature  of 
the  child-mind.  How  can  there  be  the  conscious- 
ness of  sin  which  is  involved  in  the  process? 
That  the  sense  of  sorrow  may  be  brought  about 
by  suggestion  and  sympathy  is  well  known.  May 
there  not  be  something  artificial  about  the  whole 
procedure?  That  many  children  thus  begin  their 
religious  life  is  undoubted.  One  is  tempted  to 
say,  Better  this  method,  even  if  involved  in  mis- 


HOW  CAN  A  CHILD  BE  SAVED?     175 

taken  suppositions,  than  the  inattention  to  their 
religious  life  which  widely  prevails.  But  while 
we  refrain  from  denunciation  of  what  may  be  a 
mistake,  may  we  not  inquire,  Is  there  not  a  better 
way,  based  upon  truer  psychology  and  purer 
doctrine? 

That  better  way  for  the  child  that  lives  to 
grow  up,  we  will  consider  when  we  come  to  speak 
of  the  " Birth  from  Above."  But  what  shall  we 
say  concerning  those  who  do  not  live  to  grow  up! 

One  of  the  answers  is,  Baptize  them :  this  will 
cure  the  sin  of  their  nature  and  admit  them  into 
heaven.  We  have  already  paid  our  respects  to 
that  teaching.  It  is  a  belated  doctrine  proceeding 
out  of  the  night  of  superstition.  We  need  add 
no  more.* 

Another  answer  is :  God  cuts  short  the  work  in 
righteousness ;  sanctifies  them,  and  takes  them  to 
heaven.  We  confess  ourselves  unable  to  put  any 
meaning  into  these  words.  Can  it  mean  that 
God  accelerates  the  mental  and  moral  develop- 

*  The  following  is  from  a  sermon  preached  apparently  only  thirteen  years  ago, 
published  in  the  Homiletic  Review.  I  will  not  name  the  preacher,  but  it  will  show  that 
I  have  not  misstated  the  position  that  was  held  by  orthodox  preachers  no  longer  ago 
than  that.  To  my  ear  it  sounds  from  very  far  away.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  heard 
anything  like  it  recently. 

"By  nature  they  (children)  are  in  Adam,  and  not  in  Christ;  they  are  the  children 
of  the  world,  and  not  of  God.  It  is  a  divine  transaction  (by  which  they  are  made  par- 
takers of  life) — a  new  life  is  given  in  holy  baptism.  That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  must 
be  'born  again  of  water  and  the  Spirit.'  What  has  been  promised  to  parents  and  their 
seed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  be  actually  conferred.  It  is  called  the  'washing  of  regen- 
eration." With  this  infants  have  no  more  to  do  than  with  their  natural  generation. 
That  is  an  act  of  God  in  His  own  appointed  way,  and  the  life  thus  commenced  underlies 
and  precedes  all  consciousness,  all  thought,  faith,  hope,  and  charity.  Children  may 
regain  in  Jesus  Christ  all  they  lost  in  Adam.  Those  who  are  baptized  into  Christ  have  put 
on  Christ,  and  if  afterwards  they  change  their  relation  to  God  it  must  be  by  departing 
from  Him." 


176   MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

ment  of  these  children,  so  that  they  can  enter 
upon  conditions  of  faith  and  acceptance  of  Christ, 
and  that,  this  being  accomplished,  their  nature  is 
regenerated  and  they  are  taken  into  heaven? 
These  seem  to  he  the  necessities  of  the  case  on 
the  assumption  of  inherited  sinfulness.  We  un- 
dertake to  say  that  even  God  can  not  do  that. 
Moral  character  is  a  personal  achievement,  and 
can  not  be  thus  cut  short,  nor  any  short  cuts  taken 
in  its  attainment.  Moreover,  the  whole  repre- 
sentation is  the  promulgation  of  a  theory  in  dire 
distress.  It  is  much  easier  to  disbelieve  the  whole 
theory,  to  start  with,  than  to  stretch  our  credulity 
to  such  limits.  Reject  the  doctrine  of  original 
sin,  and  it  serves  no  useful  purpose. 

The  answer  that  these  children  are  sent  to 
perdition,  having  never  done  evil,  requires  noth- 
ing but  a  reference  to  it.  There  was  a  day  when 
it  required  argument ;  but  the  sun  of  that  day  will 
never  rise  again.  It  passes  our  comprehension 
that  such  an  article  of  faith  ever  could  have  had  an 
hour's  lodgment  in  human  belief.  That  man  could 
ever  have  thought  so  vilely  of  God  is  a  mystery 
which  can  never  be  fully  explained.  That  belief 
has  been  driven  forth,  not  so  much  by  argument 
or  presentation  of  proof  texts  as  by  direct  insight. 
Whatever  else  is  true,  that  can  not  be  true.  We 
may  forever  despair  of  an  answer  to  our  ques- 
tion; but  this  answer  is  forever  barred. 

The  only  other  answer  that  can  be  presented 
on  the  assumption  of  hereditary  sin  is  the  answer 


HOW  CAN  A  CHILD  BE  SAVED?     177 

of  a  Future  Probation.  The  argument  runs 
something  like  this:  None  can  be  saved  except 
those  who  personally  accept  Jesus  Christ  as  their 
Savior.  Children  and  some  others  can  not  accept 
Jesus  Christ  here;  therefore  an  opportunity  will 
be  presented  for  them  to  accept  Him  in  a  future 
world.  They  will  remain  in  the  Intermediate 
State  until  they  have  passed  through  the  moral 
conditions  which  are  denied  to  them  here. 

This  doctrine,  on  the  assumption  of  original 
sin,  always  seemed  to  me,  since  I  first  came  in 
contact  with  it,  exceedingly  reasonable.  I  never 
was  a  convert  to  it,  because  I  concluded  that,  while 
it  seemed  unobjectionable  from  its  relation  to 
children,  yet  there  is  not  enough  data  to  pro- 
nounce it  proven.  But  from  our  point  of  view  it 
is  not  a  necessary  solution. 

Our  own  solution  of  the  problem  may  be  pre- 
sented in  a  few  words:  Children  are  in  an  ac- 
ceptable relation  to  God  when  they  come  into  the 
world.  That  relation  they  can  not  annul  until  they 
come  to  years  of  moral  accountability  and  rebel 
against  Him.  In  the  meantime,  if  He  should  take 
them  to  Himself,  we  have  only  the  problem  of 
their  development  in  righteousness  under  an  en- 
vironment more  favorable  than  here.  That  prob- 
lem lies  outside  our  investigation;  we  need  not 
enter  upon  its  discussion. 


12 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE 

WE  have  no  doubt  of  the  spiritual  birth  that  comes 
in  a  moment  of  time.  We  have  no  word  of  dis- 
couragement for  those  who  are  seeking  to  secure 
the  instantaneous  conversion  of  adults  from  sin 
to  holiness.  Let  that  problem  be  considered  and 
advanced  as  much  as  possible  by  those  who  have 
responsibility  for  it.  All  we  need  to  say  just  now 
is  that  the  workings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  not 
confined  to  it,  and  that  manifestly  it  does  not  ap- 
ply to  infants  and  children.  The  unconscious 
birth  from  above  as  experienced  by  children  is 
scarcely  in  need  of  defense;  it  has  been  experi- 
enced by  so  many  eminent  Christians.  G.  Camp- 
bell Morgan  "can  not  recall  any  definite  time  of 
his  conversion.  He  believes  that  the  gift  of  grace 
may  be  unconsciously  received,  especially  by  chil- 
dren who  have  been  taught  from  earliest  years 
that  they  belong  to  Christ."  Another  writer,  a 
profound  student  of  this  question,  says :  "  To  one 
who  has  handled  the  material  of  these  psycho- 
logical studies  it  becomes  very  clear  that  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  adolescent  period,  or  shortly 
after,  no  important  difference  can  be  discovered 

178 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE  179 

between  the  persons  who  experienced  a  conscious 
conversion  and  those  who  have  simply  kept  up 
their  religious  growth.  More  than  that,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  process  of  growth  is  in  many  cases 
simply  a  gradual  way  of  going  through  the  same 
change  that  conies  to  others  in  what  is  called  con- 
version, and  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
special  disadvantage  in  the  gradual  process  as 
compared  with  the  process  of  rapid  upheaval." 
(Geo.  A.  Coe.) 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  not  go  with  those 
who  represent  conversion  as  a  mere  adolescent  ex- 
perience. If  it  were  so,  all  youth  would  pass 
through  it,  and  it  would  eventuate  in  the  Chris- 
tian life.  It  is  capable  of  demonstration  that 
of  many  of  those  who  are  converted  the  experi- 
ence occurs  in  adolescent  years;  but  a  majority 
of  adolescent  experiences  do  not  result  in  con- 
version. The  larger  number  of  youth  do  not  take 
the  road  at  that  time  which  is  described  by  con- 
version, but  turn  from  it  into  the  rejection  of  the 
religious  life.  To  criticise  the  methods  of  reli- 
gious workers  by  which  they  seek  to  secure  the 
consent  of  youth  to  live  the  religious  life,  by  as- 
suming that  they  were  unnecessary,  and  that  these 
youth  would  have  arrived  there  by  the  adolescent 
route,  is  to  fly  in  the  face  of  abundant  facts.  The 
assumption  that  nature  would  bring  about  the 
goal  is  far  from  being  warranted. 

We  are  of  those  who  believe  that  the  birth  from 
above  is  not  the  mere  naturalistic  development 


180  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

of  something  in  the  personality  of  the  child ;  but 
we  also  believe  that  the  ideal  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  done  for  the  human  spirit  in  normal  de- 
velopment of  the  spirit  of  the  child ;  that  children 
may  from  birth  be  the  children  of  the  Heavenly 
Father.  Our  present  task  is  to  inquire  into  the 
manner  and  methods  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  such  a 
case,  that  by  co-operation  with  that  Spirit  we  may 
learn  to  promote  in  increasing  measure  that  much- 
to-be-desired  end. 

Our  conception  is  well  described  by  the  phrase 
" birth  from  above."  The  manner  of  it  is  not 
that  of  an  instantaneous  moral  change,  which  evi- 
dently does  not  fit  the  childhood  condition,  but 
rather  a  spiritual  incoming  from  a  pressure  as 
continuous  as  that  of  the  atmosphere  about  us. 
The  birth  of  the  human  spirit  we  have  already 
pictured  as  occurring  during  the  years  when  the 
child  is  coming  to  human  manifestation.  Even 
though  to  some  that  picture  may  be  unacceptable 
as  to  the  birth  of  the  human  spirit,  it  may  stand 
as  our  illustration  of  the  incoming  of  the  Divine 
Spirit.  We  hold  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  an  ever- 
present,  ever-active  influence  upon  the  child- 
nature.  It  must  be  admitted  that  divine  methods 
in  general  are  from  germinal  beginnings  through 
unobservable  increments  to  fullness  of  life.  That 
it  should  be  so  in  this  spiritual  birth  from  above 
should  create  no  surprise.  We  can  conceive  a 
great  deal  being  done  for  the  child  before  there 
is  a  volitional  response  from  it.  Psychologists 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE          181 

recognize  the  change  in  consciousness  when  there 
is  no  consciousness  of  change.  Along  with  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mental  and  conscious  life  there 
may  be  a  development  of  the  moral  nature  giving 
a  very  decidedly  different  spiritual  condition  in 
the  child  before  there  has  been  anything  like  a 
choice  based  on  the  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong. 

Says  Mrs.  Lamoreaux :  ' '  The  nurture  of  these 
years  is  as  silent  as  that  of  the  dewdrop  upon  the 
blade  of  grass,  but  it  is  as  real.  God's  voice  is 
the  still  small  voice  that  ever  speaks  in  quietness. 
The  stillness  of  the  moment  at  the  mother's  knee, 
the  prayer  repeated  in  the  reverent,  low  tone  of 
the  mother's  voice,  the  earnest  prayer  offered  for 
him  in  His  presence,  the  Christlike  living  in  the 
home,  all  carry  their  holy  influence  to  his  soul. 
He  feels  God  without  knowing  Him."  ("The  Un- 
folding Life,"  40.) 

The  first  moral  relation  of  the  child  that  is  es- 
tablished is  a  relation  with  the  parent.  The  child 
is  obedient  or  disobedient  to  the  parent  long  be- 
fore he  knows  his  moral  relation  to  the  Heavenly 
Parent.  Right  training  will  put  into  this  relation 
with  the  parent  the  germ  up  from  which  will  grow 
the  moral  nature  in  his  relation  to  all  other  beings. 
Thus  the  parents  in  the  beginning  are  in  the  re- 
lation of  God  to  the  child,  and  through  relation 
to  them  the  moral  nature  is  to  have  its  first  exer- 
cise and  training.  We  would  then  say,  hoping  not 
to  be  understood  as  saying  more  than  we  do  say — 
more  than  should  be  claimed  at  this  stage  of  the 


182  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

child's  life— that  the  child  that  is  obedient  to  his 
parents,  thus  fulfilling  the  highest  that  he  can  at 
that  time  know,  is  born  from  above,  is  a  child  of 
God.  This  yielding  to  God  by  proxy  is  all  that 
can  be  expected  of  him  until  he  has  learned  about 
God  and  His  relations.  I  do  not  mean  by  that 
merely  until  he  has  learned  to  repeat  by  rote  cer- 
tain definitions  from  the  catechism  or  elsewhere — 
which  teaching  I  most  earnestly  commend;  but 
which  for  the  time  may  be  to  him  but  little  more 
than  so  many  words — but  until  that  time  when  his 
comprehension  is  intelligent  and  real.  Doing  the 
right  and  seeking  the  good  is  tantamount  in  his 
stage  of  development  to  yielding  himself  to  God 
and  seeking  Him.  , 

Accepting  God  for  him  must  be  as  the  dawning 
day ;  as  gradually  as  the  conception  is  formed,  so 
gradually  must  be  its  response.  We  can  not  defi- 
nitely fix  the  first  moment  of  the  first  ray,  and  it 
would  not  be  of  supreme  significance  if  we  could ; 
for  the  increment  of  light  received  the  succeeding 
moment  is  of  as  much  relative  importance  as  the 
first  dawn.  Each  succeeding  increment  of  God- 
consciousness  also  has  its  importance.  "And  if 
one  says,  But  there  must  be  a  time  of  distinct 
choice  between  God  and  the  world,  the  answer 
would  be  that  at  best  this  only  fixes  the  beginning 
of  self-consciousness  in  religion,  and  not  the  be- 
ginning of  religion  itself.  And  indeed,  self-con- 
sciousness can  rarely  be  thus  accurately  dated; 
but  religion  in  the  properly  trained  Christian 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE          183 

child  has  complex  and  untraceable  beginnings  in 
the  spirit  and  atmosphere  of  the  home,  in  child- 
hood prayers,  in  participation  in  religious  rites 
and  customs,  in  imitations  of  those  about  him,  in 
wise  parental  instruction  and  discipline,  and  in  the 
hidden  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  These 
things  can  not  be  dated."  (Bowne:  "Studies  in 
Christianity,"  269.)  A  very  remarkable  case  of 
this  in  the  concrete  is  that  of  Phillips  Brooks. 
He  had  felt  the  call  to  preach  and  went  to  talk 
to  his  pastor  about  the  preliminaries.  His  pastor 
remarked  that  it  was  usual  to  be  converted  be- 
fore beginning  to  preach.  Brooks  replied  that 
he  knew  nothing  about  conversion.  ("Life  and 
Letters,"  I,  142.) 

We  are  assuming  that  all  this  time  the  child 
is  in  a  relation  such  as  is  technically  defined  as 
the  justified  relation  to  God.  This  relation  may 
be  broken  in  his  case,  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the 
adult  by  disobedience  to  its  standard  of  right. 
That  broken  relation  may  be  re-established  by 
contrition,  as  also  in  the  case  of  the  adult.  Here, 
again,  the  parent  fulfills  his  function  by  teaching 
the  child  the  place  of  repentance.  These  missteps 
and  restorations  have  in  them  more  of  the  nature 
of  the  sorrow  and  restoration  as  experienced  by 
the  adult  Christian  than  of  the  breaking  off  of  the 
wicked  life  by  the  adult  sinner  in  conversion. 

The  means  of  developing  this  God-conscious- 
ness is  of  importance  to  note.  In  his  early  years 
the  child  is  a  creature  of  imitation  and  subject  to 


authority.  He  forms  habits  which  at  first  are 
without  moral  content,  but  which  become  in  later 
years  the  very  means  of  selfhood.  Hence  the 
child  should  now  be  taught  the  habit  of  prayer. 
It  is  a  great  opportunity  now  to  teach  him  a  cer- 
tain formula  of  words,  the  deep  moral  meaning 
of  which  he  can  not  immediately  comprehend; 
but  as  their  meaning  grows  in  his  understanding, 
their  moral  force  comes  home  to  his  life.  He  can 
now  form  the  habit  of  Church  attendance,  which 
by  its  very  inertia  may  carry  him  subsequently 
through  many  an  hour  of  indifference.  The  habit- 
forming  period  will  not  return  again. 

Some  people,  not  comprehending  the  nature  of 
the  child,  and  reasoning  from  the  nature  of  an 
adult,  are  fearful  that  harm  is  being  done  him  by 
having  to  go  through  actions  and  word-formulas 
which  he  does  not  mean,  because  he  does  not  com- 
prehend them.  This  is  an  idle  fear.  Educators 
assure  us  that  use  or  action  always  goes  before 
the  comprehension  of  the  reasons  for  them.  "In 
its  application  to  moral  education  this  law  means 
that  the  habit  of  good  conduct  should  precede 
ethical  reasoning,  that  the  child's  activities,  in 
harmony  with  the  best,  should  be  developed  before 
he  can  understand  ethical  principles."  (Griggs: 
"Moral  Education,"  75.)  A  child  should  pray 
before  he  can  understand  the  relation  of  God  to 
man.  All  the  religious  activities  may  precede  the 
comprehension  of  the  reason  for  them.  It  is  desir- 
able that  the  Church  service  should  become  fa- 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE          185 

miliar  to  the  child  before  he  can  comprehend  the 
Biblical  history  from  which  the  principles  of  wor- 
ship proceed.  The  child  is  incapable  of  hypocrisy 
for  the  very  reason  that  he  can  not  comprehend; 
e.  g.,  teaching  a  child  the  Apostles'  Creed.  He 
can  not  know  the  meaning  of  those  statements  of 
belief;  is  he,  therefore,  consciously  lying  in  re- 
peating them?  By  no  manner  of  means.  This  is 
a  mere  formula  of  sounds;  but  those  sounds  will 
be  imbedded  in  memory  and  will  say  themselves 
back  to  him  as  the  years  go  by.  As  the  meaning 
of  the  words  gradually  dawn  they  will  be  ac- 
cepted or  rejected  in  the  light  of  all  other  Chris- 
tian teaching.  Below  the  moral  consciousness  im- 
pressions and  habits  are  being  formed  that  will 
deeply  grip  the  spirit  in  the  coming  years.  Our 
own  convictions  of  the  truth  of  our  teaching  is  our 
warrant  for  it.  He  who  is  without  deep  convic- 
tions will  have  no  foundation  to  impress  these 
truths  on  the  consciousness  of  his  child. 

Our  conception  of  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  that  of  the  near  rather  than  the  far;  of  the 
normal  rather  than  the  abnormal  and  unusual; 
of  the  gradual  and  developing  pari  passu  with  the 
physical  and  mental  nature  rather  than  the  instan- 
taneous and  the  revolutionary.  It  fortifies  the  na- 
ture before  habits  of  sin  have  had  the  first  and 
best  chance.  It  makes  religion  a  thing  of  life 
rather  than  a  preparation  for  death.  If  it  were 
not  a  possibility,  we  would  surely  conclude  that 
the  religion  of  the  Bible  were  an  after-thought, 


186  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

and  not  entirely  adjusted  to  human  problems  and 
human  nature.  The  child  is  God's  own  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world;  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  he  could  be  God's  only  by  some  strange  work- 
ing against  his  nature,  and  subsequent  to  childish 
development,  and  at  the  best  God  could  only  have 
a  mere  remnant  of  his  life. 

Believing  earnestly,  as  we  do,  in  the  normality 
of  childlike  religion,  we  nevertheless  believe  that 
the  growing  youth  is  to  have  some  crises  in  his 
development.  He  may  proceed  gradually  on  the 
upgrade  of  life,  when  suddenly  a  new  vision,  a 
wider  horizon,  opens  upon  him,  with  greater  op- 
portunities, new  privileges,  and  heavier  responsi- 
bilities than  those  before  known.  Will  he  enter 
upon  this  larger  day?  The  decision  is  not  the 
question  of  conversion  from  a  life  of  sin;  but  it 
is  a  question  of  the  further  progress  or  retrogres- 
sion of  life.  ' '  We  have  failed  to  make  the  proper 
distinction  between  conversion  and  the  coming 
into  clearness  of  spiritual  consciousness.  This 
latter  is  necessary  in  the  case  of  every  person,  but 
conversion  is  necessary  only  in  the  case  of  those 
who  have  fallen  away  from  God  through  volun- 
tary sin.  Failing  to  make  this  distinction,  we  have 
fallen  into  the  error  of  regarding  certain  expe- 
riences which  come  naturally  to  children  in  their 
moral  and  spiritual  development  as  conversion, 
where  in  reality  it  is  only  what  may  be  called  *  the 
spiritual  awakening/  that  is  a  necessary  incident 
to  the  spiritual  life,  when  that  which  lies  latent 
and  undefined  in  the  mind  becomes  active  and 


THE  BIETH  FROM  ABOVE          187 

definite.  This  corresponds  in  the  spiritual  life  to 
what  occurs  ordinarily  in  the  mental  life.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  mind  in  any  large  way  requires 
a  mental  awakening  when  the  mind  becomes  eager 
and  questioning  and  hungry;  when  its  eyes  are 
opened  and  it  begins  to  look  out  upon  the  world 
of  things  with  interest  and  strong  desire  for 
knowledge.  To  the  soul  also  must  come  a  time 
when  it  awakens  from  vague  into  distinct  con- 
sciousness of  God,  when  its  spiritual  cravings  take 
definite  direction,  when  in  fact  the  soul  becomes 
conscious  of  itself  and  its  moral  power.  Such  an 
awakening  should  be  expected  in  the  history  of 
every  child,  but  it  may  have  nothing  in  common 
with  what  we  know  as  conversion  or  regeneration 
in  an  adult."  (Dr.  McFarland:  "Preservation 
versus  The  Rescue  of  the  Child,"  21.)  Even  to 
the  Christian  child  the  adolescent  period  is  likely 
to  precipitate  such  a  crisis,  and  its  decision  is 
fraught  with  grave  consequences.  A  quotation 
from  Campbell  Morgan  will  cover  this  point  and 
much  that  we  have  already  contended  for.  "  It  is 
a  great  mistake  to  think  of  man  as  made,  and  then 
put  in  some  position,  where  he  may  rise  or  fall, 
according  to  the  capacity  of  his  own  personality. 
It  is  rather  to  be  remembered  that  he  was  cre- 
'  ated  in  the  image  of  God,  and  then  put  in  the  pro- 
bationary position,  through  which  he  has  to  pass 
to  some  larger  form  of  existence,  if  his  life  were 
lived  in  union  with  God  who  created  him." 
("Crises  of  the  Christ,"  28.) 

We  are  presenting  no  recent  or  strange  doc- 


188  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

trine  in  holding  to  the  acceptable  relation  of  chil- 
dren to  God.  As  good  a  theologian  as  Dr.  W.  F. 
Warren,  as  fraternal  delegate  from  the  General 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to 
the  British  Conference  in  1882,  in  ringing  words 
presented  the  following  ideal:  "What,  then,  is  the 
type  higher  and  better?  .  .  .  It  is  the  type  which 
does  not  demand  .  .  .  that  the  first  years  of 
every  life  shall  be  given  to  the  service  of  sin  and 
Satan;  it  is  the  type  which  comes  of  making  the 
resources  of  divine  grace  equal  to  all  the  necessi- 
ties of  childhood;  it  is  the  type  which  conies  to 
light  in  the  Christian  household  when  the  child  of 
many  prayers  and  of  intelligent  Christian  nurture 
yields  to  the  drawings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  so  early 
and  so  sweetly  as  never  in  later  life  to  know  when 
it  began  to  love  God  and  to  lead  a  life  prayerful 
and  Christian  and  of  ever-growing  beauty  and 
strength.  .  .  .  Bare  as  its  actualization  may  be, 
it  is  the  type  which  God  by  His  Holy  Spirit  is 
evermore  trying  to  actualize  in  every  Christian 
home.  ...  If  the  Methodism  of  the  future  is  to 
be  equal  to  her  providential  call  and  mission  in 
this  respect,  she  must  not  permit  the  exponents 
of  a  catastrophic  piety  to  hide  her  loftier  and  bet- 
ter ideal.  .  .  .  She  must  acknowledge  those 
whom  God  acknowledges,  and,  like  her  Lord,  re- ' 
buking  all  interdiction,  she  must  take  these  little 
ones  in  her  arms  and  bless  them,  saying,  'Of  such 
is  the  Kingdom  of  heaven. '  ...  In  our  concep- 
tion there  is  perfect  purity  for  the  vilest  sinner. 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE          189 

But  if  for  the  vilest  sinner,  how  much  more  for 
the  artless  spirit  of  the  little  child,  who,  under  the 
influences  of  a  Christian  nurture  at  the  very  dawn 
of  the  spiritual  consciousness,  trustfully  yields 
himself  up  to  the  Spirit's  purifying  touch." 
(The  Christian  Advocate,  N.  Y.,  Aug.  10,  1882.) 

Dr.  Arthur  H.  Goodenough  says:  "To  make 
the  child  a  Christian  is  not  our  business.  Our 
work  is  to  see  that  it  never  ceases  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian. The  thing  needed  for  the  child  is  not  con- 
version, but  atmosphere,  example,  nurture,  en- 
couragement. The  child  is  in  the  Kingdom.  It  is 
the  Father's  own,  whom  Jesus  loved  and  blessed. 
The  Master  pointed  to  the  child  as  the  pattern  of 
what  we  ought  to  be ;  and  yet  some  of  our  brothers 
still  insist  that  the  children  of  their  flocks  must 
go  to  the  altar,  and  in  the  one  way,  their  way,  the 
narrow  way,  the  only  way,  tell  God  what  great 
sinners  they  have  been.  To  keep  a  child  out  of 
Church  membership  because  this  is  not  done  is 
unwarranted  and  wicked ;  and  yet  this  very  thing 
is  occurring  all  the  time.  The  children,  sweet  and 
beautiful,  are  being  driven  away  from  the  Church 
home  and  shelter  and  help  just  because  their 
parents  will  not  consent  to  their  going  through 
the  same  forms  of  confession  and  repentance  that 
are  expected  of  hardened  sinners.  The  parents 
are  right,  the  Churches  are  wrong.  Such  conduct 
is  cruel  to  the  children  and  must  be  displeasing  to 
the  Master."  (Zion's  Herald,  Nov.  11, 1903.) 

Dr.   Curtis,  of  Drew  Theological  Seminary, 


190  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

says :  * '  The  child  is  in  a  spiritual  condition  which 
is  the  equivalent  of  the  regenerated  state." 
("The  Christian  Faith,"  437.) 

Stanley  Hall  says :  * '  The  Lutheran  children  do 
not  look  forward  to  conversion.  If  they  have  been 
baptized  in  infancy  and  daily  nurtured,  they  must 
not  be  assumed  to  be  unregenerate  but  as  already 
in  a  state  of  grace.  The  germs  of  a  spiritual  life 
were  early  planted  and  have  grown  with  their 
growth,  and  they  need  no  violent  change  or  drastic 
religious  experience.  Religion  is  a  growth,  not  a 
conquest;  but  adolescence  is  the  critical  season  of 
development,  during  which  special  care  is  need- 
ful. ' '  The  above  practice,  it  may  be  conceded,  has 
not  produced  satisfactory  results,  and  the  spir- 
itual condition  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  Ger- 
many is  one  of  the  most  discouraging  facts  in  the 
world.  To  assign  the  reason  we  do  not  think  it 
necessary  to  assume  the  doctrine  of  original  sin 
in  infants;  but  rather  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  spiritual  tests  are  all  perfunctory  and 
mechanical.  They  should  be  spiritual  and  vital. 
The  theory  that  we  maintain  is  by  no  means  a 
lazy  theory  of  religion ;  a  theory  that  assumes  that 
all  is  well,  and  that,  therefore,  we  need  give  our- 
selves no  trouble,  or  that  we  may  be  satisfied  with 
a  few  formal  observances.  It  is  just  the  contrary. 
It  assumes  the  necessity  of  immediate  and  con- 
tinuous religious  instruction  and  care.  This  on 
the  basis  that  the  child  is  already  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  needs  Christian  culture  all  the  way  to 


THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE  191 

manhood.  It  shrinks  from  no  test  that  is  now 
applied  to  Christian  people,  unless  the  test  be 
purely  formal.  Having  done  its  work  for  the 
child,  having  brought  it  through  the  period  when 
character  is  formed,  it  now  challenges  any  tests 
that  may  demonstrate  the  presence  of  the  Christ- 
life  within.  If  now  it  is  demonstrated  that  it  is 
devoid  of  that  life,  we  would  join  with  others  in 
what  are  accounted  revival  lines  and  seek  to  se- 
cure the  conversion  of  the  soul  to  God.  Our  prac- 
tical objection  to  the  exclusive  revivalistic  method 
is  that  logically  it  would  neglect  the  child  through 
formative  years,  and  then  seek  to  bring  him  into 
the  Kingdom  by  conquest,  by  revolution.  This 
method  we  would  commend  only  as  a  last  resort. 
We  can  not  nullify  absolutely  the  perils  of 
freedom.  After  we  have  done  all  that  human  and 
even  divine  wisdom  can  suggest,  there  is  ever  a 
tribunal  to  which  we  must  submit  the  results  of 
our  work.  It  is  the  august  tribunal  of  the  human 
soul  itself.  Man  and  God  Himself  must  stand 
aside  while  this  judge  that  never  abdicates  the 
throne  renders  the  verdict.  And  yet  religion  is 
so  reasonable,  and  sin  is  so  suicidal  and  indefen- 
sible that  the  human  soul,  endowed  with  reason, 
should  render  such  a  verdict  as  we  desire.  We 
may  do  our  work  with  a  strong  expectation  of 
success,  if  we  do  it  faithfully  and  well.  Dr.  S.  P. 
Cadman  has  well  expressed  this  confidence.  He 
says:  "The  plane  occupied  at  birth  and  during 
the  earliest  years  should  not  be  deserted,  but  main- 


192  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

tained.  The  spontaneous  faith,  the  free  and  un- 
mediated  approach  of  the  soul  to  its  Creator,  the 
faculties  as  yet  uncrippled  by  the  blows  of  sin,  the 
warm  and  fragrant  affection,  the  touching  depend- 
ence on  superior  strength,  all  are  hallmarks  which 
are  visible  in  the  first  years  of  this  pilgrimage. 
And  none  can  achieve  a  better  fate  than  to  turn 
back  at  eventide  to  the  radiance  that  escorted  his 
spirit  into  consciousness.  How,  then,  do  we  deal 
with  these  morning  flowers  when  they  display 
their  sweets,  their  gay  and  silken  leaves  unfold? 
Their  spiritual  experiences  do  not  need  the  instill- 
ing of  adult  beliefs  so  much  as  the  fostering  of 
infant  intuition.  For  these  experiences  precede 
statements  of  religious  truth.  They  live  in  heaven 
before  they  conceive  of  heaven. 

So  glorious  is  their  nature,  so  august 
Man's  inborn  uninstructed  impulses, 
His  naked  spirit  so  majestical. 

.  .  .  There  is  no  powerful  resistance  in  him 
which  piety  must  overcome  to  obtain  a  lodgment. 
.  .  .  James  Martineau  says  that '  if  we  place  be- 
fore our  children  the  clear  objects  of  faith,  of  truth 
in  its  beauty,  and  God  in  His  holiness,  they  will 
respond.  When  we  speak  to  them  of  the  high 
deeds  and  splendid  characters  of  the  past,  of  the 
universe  in  which  God  lives  and  rules,  of  Jesus 
and  His  words  and  works,  we  may  be  assured  the 
fruit  will  appear  in  due  season.  .  .  .  Fasten  his 
alert  attention  on  the  love  and  justice  that  per- 
meate the  universal  frame  and  fill  the  activities 


THE  BIETH  FROM  ABOVE  193 

of  earth  and  boundless  recesses  of  heaven;  then 
leave  these  instructions  to  ripen  in  his  susceptible 
and  impressionable  being,  and  fear  not  for  the 
results.'  "  (Brooklyn  Eagle.) 

This  view  of  the  relation  of  the  child  to  God 
seems  to  have  been  older  than  Christianity.  The 
practices  of  the  Jews  would  indicate  that  they 
held  their  children  to  be  members  of  the  holy 
nation,  and  that  their  religious  rights  should  be 
strictly  observed.  Dr.  Charles  S.  Eobinson  gives 
the  following  account  of  the  care  of  Jewish  chil- 
dren: "Counsels  without  number  are  given  with 
reference  to  all  the  younger  members  of  the  fam- 
ily. They  were  to  be  solemnly  dedicated  under 
a  prescribed  ordinance.  They  were  to  be  trained 
in  all  the  matters  of  the  ceremonial  law.  Histor- 
ical and  commemorative  festivals  were  to  be  ex- 
plained to  their  understanding,  so  as  to  be  fixed 
in  their  intelligent  recollection.  They  were  not 
allowed  to  come  under  the  contaminating  influ- 
ences which  nurses  of  a  different  religion  might 
possibly  exert.  As  soon  as  they  could  speak  they 
were  taught  to  repeat  sentences  from  the  Scrip- 
tures. In  the  schools  the  law  of  Moses  formed 
one  of  their  common  text-books.  A  sort  of  degree 
was  to  be  taken  at  thirteen  years  old,  and  they 
received  thereafter  the  name  'Sons  of  the  Com- 
mandment.' And  the  settled  rule  in  the  Jewish 
nation  was  that  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to  walk 
up  Mt.  Moriah  by  holding  on  to  their  father's 
hands,  they  were  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  to  keep 

13 


194  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

their  first  Passover.  All  along  their  growing 
years  until  they  were  mature  they  were  held  under 
strictest  guardianship ;  and  at  last,  when  one  had 
passed  out  of  boyhood,  he  was  brought  officially 
before  ten  of  the  picked  men  and  by  solemn  act 
was  thrown  on  his  own  responsibility,  his  parents 
on  that  occasion  soberly  laying  off  the  charge  of 
their  covenant  and  thanking  God  that  they  had 
been  spared  to  complete  his  education,  and  now 
offer  him  to  God  and  the  nation."  (Sunday 
School  Times.') 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WHICH   BO  AD? 

THERE  are  two  roads  in  which  children  may  be 
guided:  the  road  of  animal  development  and  the 
road  which  uses  physical  powers  but  subordinates 
them  to  higher  uses — the  road  of  spiritual  over- 
development. 

The  history  of  our  subject  shows  that  there 
have  always  been  two  roads  between  which  choice 
was  made ;  but  they  have  not  always  been  distin- 
guished as  we  would  have  them.  The  road  of  the 
spirit  has  been  interpreted  by  the  Puritanic 
thinker  as  one  in  which  the  flesh  was  regarded  as 
in  itself  evil,  and  hence  there  was  nothing  to  be 
done  with  it  but  to  disregard  it  and  deny  its  tend- 
encies. This  road  has  been  broadly  interpreted  as 
asceticism.  Of  course,  it  never  was  a  logical  road, 
or  one  that  was  possible  to  vigorous  men.  The 
consequence  has  been  that  there  was  ever  a  re- 
bellion against  its  standard  by  normal  people  and 
a  self-depreciation  by  those  who,  accepting  the 
standard  as  right  and  divinely  imposed,  never 
could  live  up  to  it. 

Our  own  day  is  seeing  the  opposite  extreme. 
The  study  of  nature  is  largely  a  study  of  phys- 
ical nature.  Its  impulses  and  tendencies  are  be- 

195 


ing  set  forth  so  as  to  be  well  understood.  It  is 
not  this  positive  work  which  we  wish  to  question. 
The  point  of  danger  is  that  the  physical  nature  is 
not  being  studied  sufficiently  in  the  light  of  its 
purpose  or  intended  service.  If  it  be  regarded  as 
ultimate,  then  we  have  as  the  object  of  human  life 
the  activities  of  the  animal  or  physical  nature. 
Johnson  the  pugilist  would  represent  civilization 's 
climax.  This  is  the  point  at  which  the  roads  may 
divide.  Against  the  culture  and  perfection  of  the 
physical  nature  we  have  no  word  of  objection; 
but  now  we  ask,  What  next?  There  are  two  dis- 
tinct goals  from  this  point.  One  is  the  physical 
only;  the  other  is  the  perfected  physical  as  the 
efficient  instrument  of  the  spiritual.  Upon  the 
choice  of  the  goal  to  be  aimed  at  will  depend  the 
choice  and  direction  of  future  activities.  One 
course  is :  having  found  out  what  the  physical  de- 
mands, supply  the  child  with  that,  without  further 
solicitude  or  program.  The  other  says:  Having 
given  reasonable  attention  to  physical  develop- 
ment, what  now  are  the  demands  of  the  spiritual 
nature  which  represents  the  ultimate  self?  The 
answer  to  this  question  must  be  determinative  of 
the  course  taken.  It  is  not  demonstrable  that  the 
physical  being  requires  all  the  resources  of  a  nor- 
mal life.  It  is  rather  true  that  the  physical  itself 
has  a  better  development  when  it  is  used  as  a 
means,  an  instrument,  a  servant  of  the  higher  life. 
That  is  a  better  body  which  is  under  the  control 
of  a  moral  purpose  than  that  which  has  no  life  in 


WHICH  BO  AD?  197 

view  beyond  its  own.  The  man  with  a  spiritual 
purpose  may  have  better  health  and  live  longer 
than  the  man  who  lives  only  to  cultivate  the  phys- 
ical. Thus  we  believe  that  the  dominance  and 
the  subordination  of  the  physical  may  be  thor- 
oughly harmonized  as  a  method  of  normal  life 
for  both. 

So  we  plead  for  the  reinstatement  of  the  spir- 
itual as  a  program  of  life.  We  plead  for  the  guid- 
ance of  parent  and  teacher,  following  their  convic- 
tion as  to  what  is  good  for  the  young  life  rather 
than  the  control  of  the  non-moral  and  uninstructed 
inclinations  of  boys  and  girls  as  to  what  should 
be  the  discipline  of  their  life.  The  pendulum  of 
control  has  swung  too  far  toward  the  impulses  of 
nature.  In  doing  so  it  has  missed  its  way  and  will 
never  reach  the  goal  of  life.  Inclination,  as  ex- 
pressed in  youthful  life,  is  not  always  the  same  as 
nature's  course.  What  children  clamor  for  is 
not  always  and,  after  its  course  has  been  followed 
for  a  time,  is  seldom  the  demand  of  nature  for 
their  true  development.  Parents  should  know  the 
laws  of  the  child-nature  and  act  accordingly;  but 
in  so  doing  they  must  not  mistake  the  requests  of 
the  child  as  being  the  statement  of  those  laws. 
Children  may  know  what  they  want;  but  their 
wants  are  seldom  under  the  control  of  a  broad 
life-program.  Parents  are  better  able  to  arrange 
that.  To  allow  mere  clamor  to  change  their  course 
from  the  known  good  to  the  known  evil  is  inexcus- 
able weakness,  however  insistent  the  commotion, 


198  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

and  the  fruitage  for  parent  and  child  will  be  as 
bitter  as  if  the  course  had  been  adopted  from 
sheer  evil  purpose.  When  the  request  is  based 
in  a  natural  demand  of  nature  it  should  be  ac- 
ceeded  to,  but  not  always  in  the  form  which  the 
child  has  urged  it.  Young  people  need  social  life. 
They  should  have  it.  The  gratification  of  this 
need  has  in  it  the  weal  or  the  woe  of  the  child. 
The  easy  way  of  providing  for  it  is  to  turn  chil- 
dren out  into  the  street.  In  the  case  of  boys  this 
is  the  course  in  many  cases.  In  the  unwillingness 
of  parents  to  pay  the  price  of  a  better  way  lies 
more  danger  to  our  future  than  there  is  in  all  the 
battleships  of  all  our  possible  national  enemies. 
The  other  way  is  the  creation  of  social  life  in  the 
home,  where  it  may  be  guided  to  high  ends.  This 
is  costly.  It  wears  out  the  carpets  and  mars  the 
furniture.  But  there  is  more  reward,  greater  divi- 
dends in  saving  boys  and  girls  than  in  saving  car- 
pets. 

A  mother  sometimes  says :  "  I  did  not  believe 
my  boy  ought  to  go  out  this  evening;  but  he 
pleaded  so  hard  that  I  let  him  go."  That  is  an 
illustration  oft  repeated  in  families  in  which  spir- 
itual guidance  loses  its  grip  and  lawless  inclina- 
tion takes  the  reins.  This  course  is  assumed  as 
defensible  by  many  people  under  the  pressure  of 
present-day  tendencies — the  tendency  of  finding 
what  the  animal  wants,  and  giving  it  that.  If  this 
is  correct  theory,  then  the  assumption  that  human 
beings  are  moral  and  that  moral  control  is  the 


WHICH  KOAD?  199 

highest  expression  of  life,  is  unfounded.  The  rec- 
ognition of  the  demands  and  laws  of  the  physical 
life  is  one  thing;  the  abdication  of  moral  control 
is  quite  another.  To  observe  natural  obligations 
and  conform  to  them  by  no  means  requires  that 
the  direction  of  the  personality  should  be  turned 
over  to  passions  which  are  too  blind  even  to  seek 
their  own  good,  to  say  nothing  of  the  good  of  a 
spiritual  nature  to  which  is  given  the  insight  and 
the  responsibility  for  the  present  and  eternal 
guidance  of  the  whole  being.  The  expansive 
power  of  steam  turns  the  propeller  and  drives  the 
ship  through  the  sea.  Disregard  of  its  power 
would  lead  to  an  explosion ;  failure  to  conserve  it 
would  allow  it  to  dissipate  in  the  air,  and  the  ship 
without  pushing  power  would  be  pounded  to  pieces 
by  the  merciless  action  of  the  waves.  But  it  would 
be  just  as  fatal  to  start  the  engine  and  leave  it 
run  with  its  mighty  propulsion  without  a  pilot  to 
guide  it.  It  would  surely  find  the  rocks  and  de- 
stroy all.  So  the  passions  of  our  nature  make  us 
go;  but  the  reason,  as  a  pilot,  must  steer  the 
course,  avoiding  the  rocks  and  finding  the  harbor. 
In  making  this  plea  for  the  over-guidance  of 
the  spiritual,  however,  we  express  no  sympathy 
whatever  for  that  inattention  to  the  whole  nature 
of  the  child  which  is  so  often  displayed.  Let  us 
remember  that ' '  that  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual, 
but  that  which  is  natural;  and  afterwards  that 
which  is  spiritual. ' '  Every  life  must  root  itself  in 
the  physical.  No  life  can  be  normal  which  ignores 


200  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

the  animal  nature,  the  physical  basis,  and  spreads 
its  tiny  tendrils  in  the  pure  air  of  spirituality. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  fathom  the  divine  reason 
for  the  complexity  of  our  nature ;  but  we  may  rec- 
ognize it  as  a  fact  invincible,  and  believe  that  it 
represents  a  plan  of  God  and  can  not  be  success- 
fully annulled  or  obstructed.  We  start  with  the 
physical.  The  problem  is,  how  to  direct  the  total 
personality  up  into  the  spiritual,  as  representing 
the  final  expression  of  our  being.  The  physical  is 
first,  but  it  should  not  be  last.  The  moral  problem 
of  life  is  to  achieve  such  a  mastery  of  the  phys- 
ical, such  a  subordination  of  the  physical,  such  a 
crucifixion  of  the  physical,  when  it  presents  an 
unyielding  obstacle,  and  withal  such  a  ministration 
of  the  physical  as  shall  make  life  in  its  outcome 
a  total  spiritual  victor,  and  the  physical  shall  drop 
away  at  last,  bearing  our  kindliest  memories,  hav- 
ing accomplished  its  temporary  purpose.  Sur- 
passingly happy  is  the  man  who,  as  he  bids  it  fare- 
well, can  thank  God  for  the  gift  and  realize  that 
its  impulses  and  passions  have  not  engulfed  his 
real  and  final  self,  but  have  had  a  distinct  and 
essential  part  in  his  final  completeness. 

A  mother,  a  father,  should  know  the  nature  of 
their  child  through  and  through.  They  should 
know  boy-life.  If  they  try  to  build  a  spiritual  life 
without  regard  to  all  the  realities  that  are  in  the 
problem;  if  they  talk  only  of  spiritual  things, 
frowning  upon  the  intrusion  of  the  natural  and 
passionate;  if  they  seek  only  a  certain  high  ex- 


WHICH  KOAD?  201 

pression  of  the  spiritual  nature ;  if  they  ignore  the 
fact  of  social  inclination,  physical  activity,  or  even 
sexual  impulses,  the  danger  is  that  their  child  will 
develop,  so  far  as  their  knowledge  goes,  a  crust 
of  artificiality  to  which  the  real  life  within  may 
be  unrelated.  Know  your  children.  Do  not  be 
content  with  knowing  only  what  you  would  like 
them  to  be.  Encourage  them  to  open  to  you  their 
desires,  their  inclinations,  their  temptations,  their 
conflicts.  Work  from  the  vantage  point  of  that 
knowledge,  however  heartbreaking  may  be  its  rev- 
elations. You  can  do  more  when  you  see  than 
when  you  do  not.  You  can  accomplish  more  when 
using  knowledge  than  when  you  are  operating  only 
with  ignorance  as  an  instrument.  How  many 
cases  we  have  known  where  a  continually  pious 
conversation  of  parents  with  their  children  caused 
them  to  cultivate  a  suavity  of  manner,  a  guarded- 
ness  of  expression,  a  piety  of  apparent  belief  and 
life  because  they  had  learned  that  nothing  else 
was  received  without  reproof  or  distaste!  Such 
children  learn  to  be  secretive,  to  live  a  life  they 
never  reveal  to  their  parents ;  a  life  in  which  real 
confidences  are  not  given ;  a  veneer  life ;  an  unreal 
life  the  reason  for  which  is  not  seated  in  convic- 
tion nor  anchored  in  resolution.  This  is  a  road 
which  many  religious  parents  are  tempted  to 
travel.  The  revelation  of  the  reality  underneath 
after  a  while  is  a  painful  tragedy. 

In  morals  as  in  biology  there  is  a  law  of  the 
' '  Survival  of  the  Fittest, ' '    It  does  not  mean  that 


202  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

the  best  will  survive ;  it  means  that  that  survives 
which  best  fits  into  the  environment.  Hence  it 
often  indicates  degeneration  as  well  as,  under 
other  circumstances,  progress.  We  control  the 
survival  of  the  best  by  our  control  of  the  environ- 
ment. ' '  Nature  never  gives  a  final  verdict  in  favor 
of  good  or  bad,  but  only  and  always  in  favor  of 
the  fit.  Let  the  conditions  change,  so  that  rapacity 
fits  them  better  than  righteousness,  .  .  .  and 
the  thing  we  call  high  will  go  before  the  thing  we 
call  low.  .  .  .  These  laws  enthroned  and  de- 
throned the  civilization  of  the  past :  they  have  en- 
throned and  may  dethrone  us.  But  this  end  is  not 
inevitable,  since  man — and  this  is  his  great  char- 
acter— not  merely  reacts  on  his  environment,  as 
all  creatures  must,  but  can  create  and  re-create  it. 
The  business  of  eugenics  or  race-culture  is  to  cre- 
ate an  environment  such  that  the  human  charac- 
ters of  which  the  human  spirit  approves  shall  in  it 
outweigh  those  of  which  we  disapprove.  Make  it 
fittest  to  be  best,  and  the  best  will  win — not  be- 
cause it  is  the  best,  but  because  it  is  the  fittest: 
had  the  worst  been  the  fittest  it  would  have  won. " 
(Saleeby:  "Parenthood  and  Race  Culture,"  53.) 
In  the  struggle  of  the  different  elements  in 
human  nature  we  may  arrange  for  the  mastery 
(survival)  of  the  higher  or  the  lower,  according  as 
we  create  surroundings  in  which  the  higher  or  the 
lower  will  be  brought  most  into  exercise.  In  an 
atmosphere  of  physical  ideals  we  may  expect  phys- 
ical activities  to  grow  large  and  strong,  and  spir- 


WHICH  EOAD?  203 

itual  activities  to  dwindle  and  slink  out  of  sight, 
because  they  are  uncalled  for  and  unappreciated. 
The  atmosphere  is  created  by  the  conversation  in 
the  family  circle,  the  books  on  the  shelves,  the 
papers  on  the  table,  the  visitors  in  the  home,  the 
invited  companions  of  the  children,  the  home  ex- 
tended in  school  and  Church,  and  the  undercur- 
rents of  ambitions  and  ideals  which  dominate  and 
spontaneously  come  to  expression  in  all  the  off- 
guard  moments  of  life.  Keep  thy  home  with  all 
diligence;  for  out  of  it  are  the  character  issues  of 
thy  children — is  a  good  modern  version  of  one  of 
the  profoundest  sayings  in  literature.  One  author 
makes  the  sweeping  statement  that  "all  of  the 
environmental  conditions  of  the  growing  youth 
are  faulty,  save — in  the  case  of  the  fortunate  ones 
—the  moral  atmosphere  of  a  proper  home,  the 
great  inhibitor  of  all  moral  evils."  (Lydston: 
"Diseases  of  Society,"  403.) 


CHAPTER  XV 

SUMMAEY 

LET  us  connect  our  chain  into  three  well-defined 
links.  1.  The  genesis  of  the  child  is  not  from  an 
act  inherently  sinful.  It  is  necessary  to  call  dis- 
tinct attention  to  the  importance  of  this  fact,  be- 
cause logically  it  is  the  source  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  inherent  sinfulness  of  human  nature.  That 
the  child  is  a  product  of  sinful  passion  has  been 
the  assumption  of  Christian  thinkers  at  least  since 
the  time  of  Augustin,  who  had  so  much  to  do  with 
the  formation  of  Christian  doctrine.  We  are  the 
more  surprised  at  the  age-long  dominance  of  this 
assumption  when  we  remember  that  the  first  posi- 
tive command  in  the  Bible  was  to  multiply  and  re- 
plenish the  earth.  We  remember  also  that  in  this 
act  God  takes  man  into  partnership  in  the  intro- 
duction of  human  beings  into  what  we  believe  is 
the  beginning  of  an  eternal  career  of  communion 
with  Himself.  It  is  surprising  that  we  should  re- 
gard God's  part  in  this  act  as  more  worthy  of  Him 
than  the  speaking  into  existence  of  a  material 
world,  and  at  the  same  time  should  regard  man 's 
part  as  inherently  and  invincibly  evil.  God  has 
nowhere  bestowed  upon  man  greater  dignity  than 

204 


SUMMABY        §  205 

when  He  permits  him  to  open  the  gate  of  life  to 
an  eternal  spirit.  It  but  manifests  the  immeasur- 
able destructiveness  of  sin  when  by  misuse  of  this 
privilege  man  turns  the  gate  of  life  into  the  gate 
of  death.  We  must  awaken  more  and  more  to 
a  consideration  of  the  ruin  of  society  which  is 
being  wrought  by  the  violations  of  sex  relations. 
By  it  innocent  and  unsuspecting  brides  are  subject 
to  irremediable  disease  and  measureless  pain ;  un- 
born children  are  consigned  to  degeneracy  and 
human  infamy,  and  civilization  itself  is  endan- 
gered. But  to  find  that  the  misuse  of  the  highest 
human  function  leads  to  the  greatest  enormities  of 
misery  and  shame,  is  to  find  as  ever  in  nature  that 
the  worst  is  but  the  corruption  of  the  best  and  is 
no  argument  against  the  spiritual  normality  of 
the  origin  of  human  life. 

We  are  surprised,  again,  that  a  divinely  im- 
planted passion,  for  the  existence  of  which  none 
but  God  is  responsible,  should  in  its  operation  be 
regarded  as  always  in  opposition  to  the  divine 
will,  and  that  the  ideal  condition  of  human  nature 
should  ever  have  been  considered  as  that  in  which 
this  passion  is  forever  negatived  and  destroyed. 
To  allow  this  assumption  to  continue  its  domi- 
nance in  religious  circles  is  to  carry  on  a  continu- 
ous warfare  against  the  scientific  world,  which 
knows,  if  it  knows  anything,  that  the  reproduction 
of  individuals  of  the  race  is  a  biologic  virtue.  We 
deplore  this  belief  again  because  of  its  degrada- 
tion of  the  marital  life.  Marriage  is  usually 


206  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

treated  as  a  matter  for  jokes  and  never-ending 
suggestive  allusion.  Courtship  is  surrounded  with 
an  atmosphere  of  dissipation  and  frivolity,  instead 
of  being  the  apotheosis  of  human  relationship,  as 
it  should  be.  The  biggest  show  of  the  season  in 
many  a  town  is  a  mock-trial  in  a  breach-of-promise 
case  promoted  by  a  national  fun-maker.  If  mar- 
riage be  lifted  up  to  its  divine  ideal,  and  the  mar- 
ital act  be  regarded  as  a  response  to  a  divine  call, 
then  we  have  the  genesis  of  a  human  being  lifted 
to  a  plane  where  sin  has  no  normal  place,  and  the 
whole  doctrine  of  human  depravity  is  left  without 
any  foundation  except  the  abuse  of  God-given 
powers  and  the  misuse  of  normal  human  function. 
2.  We  have  by  no  means  eliminated  moral  hu- 
man struggle.  It  remains  just  as  strenuous  and 
as  fateful  as  ever.  The  struggle  is  still  a  struggle 
against  sin;  but  sin  is  differently  apprehended. 
It  has  been  considered  as  an  inbred  something, 
something  that  could  never  be  eradicated  until  the 
God-given  body  was  laid  aside.  Whatever  mas- 
tery over  self  one  acquired,  whatever  profession 
of  victory  one  might  make,  the  movement  of  fleshly 
impulse  still  existed,  and  this  "movemenf"  was 
believed  to  be  essentially  sinful.  The  doctrine  of 
Christian  perfection,  under  such  an  apprehension 
of  sin,  was  an  absurd  claim,  and  the  wail  of  all 
ages  for  personal  holiness  must  forever  continue 
until  the  earth  history  is  concluded— there  is  no 
escape  while  we  live  in  the  body.  If  our  view  is 
correct,  victory  over  sin  is  not  only  a  possibility, 


SUMMAEY  207 

but  its  non-attainment  is  a  disgrace  to  every  child 
of  God.  That  victory  may  be  attained  while  the 
flesh  is  exerting  its  everlasting  impulsion  toward 
gratification.  "The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  self- 
control,  ' '  says  Paul.  The  demand  for  this  control 
is  ever  insistent,  and,  thank  God!  its  possibility 
is  within  our  reach ! 

3.  The  third  link  in  our  chain  is  the  vitality 
of  the  family-life.  We  would,  if  power  sufficient 
is  given  us,  leave  the  impression  upon  every  par- 
ent that  infancy  and  childhood  are  as  full  of  des- 
tiny to  the  child  spiritually  as  the  prenatal  con- 
dition is  physically.  There  are  certain  laws  which 
the  parent  may  use,  as  vital  in  sustaining  and  di- 
recting the  moral  quality  of  the  life,  as  the  laws 
of  food  and  clothing  are  in  directing  and  sus- 
taining the  physical  life.  Two  of  these  factors 
are  known  as  Imitation  and  Authority.  The 
child  is  so  made  that  he  will  imitate  us ;  thus  God 
has  put  him  within  the  absolute  control  of  ex- 
ample. He  can  not  help  imitating  us,  and  he  has 
no  action  of  the  will  during  his  early  years  which 
he  may  direct  against  this  law  of  his  nature. 
But  as  he  does,  so  he  is.  To  start  with,  he  is  an 
empty  vessel,  intellectually  and  morally.  Every 
time  he  acts  he  is  dropping  a  little  grain  of  self- 
hood down  into  this  vessel,  and  this  all  before  he 
has  come  to  the  place  of  moral  choice. 

In  the  years  a  little  later,  and  on  up  to  thir- 
teen and  fourteen  years  of  age,  he  is  so  made 
that  direction  by  another  is  to  him  normal.  He 


208  MOEAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHILD 

is  fitted  to  receive  command  without  interruption 
or  disturbance  of  his  proper  development.  This 
authoritative  direction  should  be  supplied  to  him 
just  as  food  is  supplied  to  his  body,  as  unswerv- 
ingly as  the  planets  in  their  course.  So,  if  we  will 
give  him  proper  direction,  we  will  secure  from 
him  proper  action.  And  still,  as  he  acts  so  he  is. 
The  vessel  is  not  yet  full.  Every  time  he  acts 
aright  he  is  still  dropping  a  grain  of  selfhood 
down  into  his  character,  against  the  day  when 
he  must  take  up  moral  self -direction  for  himself. 
On  authority  as  a  fundamental  law  of  being, 
Dr.  Charles  H.  Parkhurst  has  the  following 
thoughtful  words:  "Parents  do  well  to  foster  in 
their  children  a  liberty-loving  spirit;  but  liberty 
is  a  positive  matter,  and  not  a  negative,  and  con- 
sists not  in  what  we  renounce  but  in  what  we 
espouse.  We  emancipate  ourselves,  not  in  what 
we  tear  ourselves  lose  from,  but  in  what  we  tie 
ourselves  up  to ;  and  the  only  liberty  fit  to  be  set 
up  in  the  home,  or  anywhere  else,  as  an  object  of 
admiration  and  an  end  to  be  attained,  is  the  lib- 
erty that  fulfills  itself  in  zealous  adherence  to  ex- 
ternal authority,  not  in  its  rejection.  Liberty  is 
a  genius  for  obeying,  and  consists  not  in  our 
successful  escape  from  ordinance,  but  in  the 
graceful  facility  with  which  we  are  able  to  exe- 
cute it.  It  is  the  liberty  to  do  consciously  what 
the  flower  does  unconsciously  when,  without  con- 
straint and  without  revolt,  it  accomplishes  the 


SUMMARY  209 

vegetable  destiny  decreed  for  it;  what  the  star 
does  unconsciously  when,  unhasting  and  unrest- 
ing, it  beamingly  runs  the  road  laid  down  for  it." 

To  grasp  control  of  the  will  of  the  child  was 
one  of  Susannah  Wesley's  earliest  tasks,  "be- 
cause," she  continues,  "this  is  the  only  strong 
and  rational  foundation  of  a  religious  education, 
without  which  both  precept  and  example  will  be 
ineffectual.  But  when  this  is  thoroughly  done, 
then  a  child  is  capable  of  being  governed  by  the 
reason  and  piety  of  its  parents,  till  its  own  under- 
standing comes  to  maturity  and  the  principles  of 
religion  have  taken  root  in  the  mind. "  (Stevens : 
' '  Hist,  of  Methodism, ' '  I,  55. )  This  subjection  of 
the  will  of  the  child  is  often  criticised  as  if  it 
were  breaking  the  will  of  the  child.  It  is  no  more 
breaking  the  will  than  is  the  staking  up  of  a  vine 
the  breaking  of  the  vine.  It  is  rather  giving  di- 
rection to  the  will,  governing  it  in  harmony  with 
the  laws  of  its  own  nature,  so  that  when  it  comes 
to  its  own  independent  expression  it  will  not 
break  against  the  unyielding  forces  of  nature  and 
society  about  it. 

It  is  only  necessary  further  to  remark  that 
these  two  laws,  imitation  and  authority,  which  are 
to  be  used  by  parents,  may  also  be  used  by  others. 
So  that  there  is  a  negative  or  defensive  duty 
which  we  owe  the  child.  We  must  keep  him  from 
those  sights  and  those  directing  and  suggesting 
influences  which  are  evil  and  will  produce  the  evil 

14 


action.  If  this  in  its  completeness  is  an  impossi- 
bility, it  at  least  is  an  ideal,  and  its  violation  is 
a  peril  to  the  extent  to  which  it  may  proceed. 
This  empty  vessel  can  be  filled  with  vice  as  in- 
evitably as  it  can  be  filled  with  virtue  by  the  oper- 
ation of  the  same  laws. 


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